Some persuasion
by Mendicantelle
Summary: The care and feeding of Dr Frank N Furter was very straightforward. You gave it enough food, drink, drugs, admiration, paper, pens, makeup, hosiery, flattery, deference and sex, and it would perform admirably. You missed out on any one of those variables and it would wobble, waver, sulk, whip you, and (in extreme cases) perform ornamental and unstoppable genocide.
1. Chapter 1

Had Denton High School been a little more inclusive, they might have seen fit to flag up with their young men one cardinal rule: never fuck with a dancer, because dancers are _strong._

The muscles in Frank's arms are like gosh-damned _wire_. Brad can't shake him. There's a sparkly gloved forearm snaked around his neck and a hand with impeccable nail polish smashed bruisingly up under his chin. His throat is mashed uncomfortably and swallowing is tough.

All in all, it's more than a little alarming, a sensation he can see reflected back at him in Janet's eyes as she takes a tiny, tentative step forward, stepping over the outflung arm of Riff Raff's prone body. It's evidently not a welcome motion, as Frank _snarls_ through that crimson mouth, an utterly inhuman sound that would be more at home in a cage of wild hyenas, and Janet freezes in place with a little yip of fright.

Really, assuming a guy's a sissy because he's wearing a garter belt? That's graduate-level dumb, right there. Even from a guy who's been forcibly stripped to his underwear and suddenly discovered he could be gay.

"F-frank," Janet manages, after a moment. She delivers his name with a stutter and it comes out in an emaciated sort of wail, but she says it, and Brad's very proud of her. She's such a trooper. "Frank. Let him go. Please. Please."

Frank's skin smells of patchouli oil, hash smoke and sweat. The alien whack of anger pheromones renders the whole mix exotic and almost sweet. The really scary part is that he seems to have utterly, finally lost it. Certainly, most people here would have agreed that the man's always been a few sequins short of a prom dress, but this time it feels different. His artful combination of smoky charm and irresistible glamour are gone, replaced by a messy bundle of muscle, rage and blood lust that's hard to find sexy (unless you happen to have a thing for rabid alligators).

Still, Brad's not entirely without sense, even in these circumstances: he decides to go with what's worked in the recent past. Frank's fingers are probably within his licking range, with a little effort. Distraction with sex - not just for Transylvanians. He starts to roll his neck in Frank's implacable grip.

"You're mad, I get that," says Janet, in her sweetest and most reasonable voice - the one she uses on toddlers, porch-sitting grannies and small, yappy dogs - "But why don't you just drop boring ol' Brad and come on back to bed, huh? With me?"

Seems Brad's not the only one who thinks giving an angry Frank a swift massage in the libido area is a valid escape plan. Everybody except Frank himself, apparently. The growl throbs in his throat and chest as if someone's revving a Harley in there. Brad can feel it vibrating against the back of his head. It's not a comforting sound. He redoubles his efforts to get at Frank's fingers. This would be the very first time good ol' Brad Majors has tried to use his personal animal magnetism to get what he wants. Somehow he'd thought it'd be under better circumstances.

There's abruptly a scuffle from the doorway, and it's Magenta coming in, looking more manic than usual, her kohled eyes wide as she takes in the little tableau and the sight of her lanky brother out cold on the floor. She and Janet swap glances, very briefly, then the alien woman gives the Frank-and-Brad _objet d'art_ a long, hard stare. " _Shit,"_ she decides, bites her bottom lip in decision, and disappears back out of the room as fast as she arrived.

Janet steels herself and locks gazes with Frank. His eyes, absurdly well-made-up as always, are dark and feline: his cheekbones shaded so slickly they look as if they could cut glass. The lipstick's like blood over cherries, thick and red, as his lips curl back and reveal the white glare of his teeth. There's something absurdly prehistoric about it which makes a resulting hit on human nerves like a bucket of ice water.

"C'mon," she says. Trying to keep the waver out of her voice, although god knows fear is probably a turn-on for him too - let's face it, what isn't? "Let's go have some fun..."

She knows she sounds about as sultry as a rainy weekend in Alaska, but it's the only weapon she's got. She does her best, casting her eyes down, pushing out her hips (in their virginal white knickers) just-so in the way that Frank does. She can feel his attention on her, following her as she moves, and for a moment she thinks she has him.

The feline eyes narrow sharply, then Brad's efforts finally pay off and he manages to get his tongue to Frank's knuckles, skinned raw from punching Riff Raff out. The sheer sensation of someone licking across his abraded skin shoots straight through Frank like electricity: he jolts, exhaling sharply and excitedly through his teeth, distracted -

And Magenta darts up behind him, seemingly out of nowhere, and clocks him right across the back of the head with a wicked little rubber cosh. Frank's expression twists in shock, then his eyes roll back to the whites and he drops, dragging Brad with him.

"Get him - get him -" Magenta grumbles, gesturing urgently with the cosh, and Brad twists just in time to get a grip on Frank's corset lacings and lower him to the ground a little more gently. This done, with Frank slumped at his feet, he finds Magenta's hand slapping him a little less than gently on the shoulder.

"Zo," she says, already fixing concerned eyes on the groaning and slowly rising figure of her brother, "vhat exactly vas it you did to zet him off, huh?"

"It's really not hard," Magenta says, shoving one of Frank's spangly platformed feet up onto the chaise roughly. "Ze master is crack Transylvanian infiltration agent." There is a suspicion of pride in the set of her shoulders for a brief moment, then she slumps. "A shame he is also crackpot insane-o-naut, but zhere you go, you can't have everyzhing."

Brad and Janet are exchanging guilty glances. "Ok. Vhat?"

There is a short, embarrassed chorus of "I slept with him."

"Ach, so vhat? So's everyone. He'd be more upset if you hadn't. Vhy d'you think ve let you in in the first place? Fresh meat." She presses manicured nails to Frank's neck and then into his armpit, grunting in satisfaction at the secure pulses she finds. "Like I said, infiltration agent. He's designed to shag anyzing zhat moves, it's vhat zhey train zem for."

Satisfied that the master is both healthy and secured for the time being, she trots over to her brother, poking his bruised jaw and stroking his long hair in a display of concern. Riff Raff regards Brad and Janet with hooded, accusatory eyes. "No, zhat's not it. C'mon, you must have done somezhing, he doesn't usually go into zuper-weapon mode without being triggered."

"And it's going to take an eternity to bring him down now," murmurs Riff Raff, setting long fingers to his aching jaw and checking it's back in place with a series of sickening cracks. "'Remember when those ghost hunters got into the woodshed? I was picking teeth out of the flowerbeds for weeks."

"You mean, you're not just his servants?"

Brad, rubbing his own abused neck, is leaning against the table. He can't help darting surreptitious glances at the recumbent Frank. Even flat out cold, the guy is oddly mesmerising, from his immaculately pale face down to his long, elegant shins.

"Servants, hah! Ve are his _handlers_. Like…lion-tamers. Sometimes you have to put ze lion in a cage. Or smack it - boof! - on the nose. Our infiltration agents are dangerous, unreliable creatures. We are here to keep him happy, keep him calm, make sure zhat he is using his skills…correctly."

"And to put him down," adds Riff Raff, quietly, "if he gets out of hand." He turns to Magenta. "What did you use on him this time?"

"Cosh."

"Ouch. I suppose it's for the best. The last time we gave him the morphine it tripled his sex drive for twelve days." He smirks at Janet's abruptly widened eyes and disbelieving expression. "And I had to replace all the sofa cushions."

"Now just a minute. If he's some sort of spy," says Brad, as Janet's face scrunches up in horrified (and secretly impressed) disgust, "then what on earth kind of mission can he be working on, dressed like - " He gestures. "I mean, looking like - acting like -"

"The master doesn't act like anything," corrects Riff Raff, amused. "That's just how he is." His expression abruptly turns cold. "And as to his mission, that is none of your concern."

"I - I slept with Rocky."

This from Janet, who is by now perched on the very end of the chaise, next to Frank's feet, and wringing the remains of her slip between her fingers. All eyes are abruptly drawn, not to her, but to the previously unnoticed bloodbath in the corner that represents whatever remains of the blond muscleman. A tanned foot hangs sadly from the tulle lampshade above the main heap of the body.

"Shit," says Magenta, again, but sounding more bored and weary than anything. "Not an accident."

"And the master wild with grief? You know better," says Riff Raff, who after almost twenty years on Frank-wrangling duty certainly does. "If there's one thing he hates more than being cock-blocked, it's making a scientific mistake."

"A mistake?" Brad can't stop his mind from dwelling on just how close he's come to being a dismembered corpse on a lampshade, torn limb from limb by a deranged alien transvestite. Somehow Janet's indiscretion seems unimportant in comparison. He also realises that there's blood splashed all up Frank's butchered fishnets and that some of the lipstick isn't lipstick. He gulps.

"Rocky was meant to be totally, unassailably loyal to Frank. The master spent years designing the algorithms to make absolutely certain of it." Riff Raff bends to a cupboard, starts pulling out black sacks and a seemingly endless supply of pink rubber gloves. " _Years_. Didn't you see the walls in the lab? After the first few years I had to put up wipe-clean tile. If we didn't put out enough paper - and we never did, no matter how many reams - he started drawing on the walls. In lipstick. And then he'd get angry because not only was he being hampered in making any progress, he'd also have to go out in Bronze Berry Number 15 instead."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Warning: Sex.**_

* * *

Frank stirs on the couch, and all eyes are instantly back on him. Magenta mutters an imprecation under her breath and raises the cosh.

He's not just stirring. He's writhing. His back arches in a serpentine, more-than-human bow, the corset straining against its laces. His hands, bloodstained in their ragged, sparkling gloves, move up automatically and then trace down his ribcage in a fluttering gesture. Both humans follow the flicker of those painted nails as if hypnotised, until Magenta growls.

"Znap out of it," she says. "or don't look at him. One of zhe two. Like I said. He's designed to be zhis way. Don't. Look."

She actually has to turn Brad around.

Frank shimmies his hands down his body until they touch his thigh, then he curls with a purring croon - still fully unconscious - and wriggles his legs. Pheromones thicken the air around him. Janet draws in a sharp breath without meaning to, her head starting to swim.

"Ah, shit," says Magenta, for perhaps the sixth time so far. "He's gone into full defensive. Vell. I'm not fucking him zhis time. Riff?"

Riff Raff snorts derisively.

"I remember the morphine hangover. I'm not going near him."

"Columbia."

"She'll freak out. She always does when he's like this."

Magenta, watching Frank like a hawk, shakes her head. "Ve're running out of time. Fine. I'll do him. But you owe me." Her darkly outlined eyes flick to Brad and Janet. "All of you owe me."

"I'll do it."

"Janet!"

Magenta turns a serious expression on the other woman.

"He will break you, darling. I'm not kidding. You've spent one night with him, you think you've had it all - you haven't."

"I don't care, I'm doing it."

Brad doesn't recognise the expression on his girl's face. Janet is staring unashamedly at Frank's coiled, purring form, and she's just licked her lips. It's alarming and absurd.

" _Janet!"_

"I'm doing it. I want to. I want _him_."

"Of course you do. That's the whole point of him." Riff Raff rolls his eyes and pats his sister on the shoulder. "Let her, if she wants to. I have to clean up in here anyway, a little more blood won't make any difference."

"Wait a minute," says Brad, his voice rising an octave. "Blood? There isn't going to be any blood. Is there? Janet? _Janet!_ I forbid you to go near him."

"Oh, Brad," Janet says, sweetly exasperated. "As if forbidden means _anything_ anymore."

She has inched closer to the couch, and is staring down at Frank as he moves. One eye cracks open a slit, and he winks, tongue running out to lave his teeth. His expression is dark, seductive, and to Janet's eyes at least, just a little desperate.

"Poor thing," she coos. "What's got you into such a state? Poor, poor Frankie…"

Poor Frankie's demeanour changes so swiftly and fluidly that you'd blink and miss it. He pouts, making a show of his ruined makeup, turning his head to show the bruising on his jaw. His eyelids flutter, the ludicrously long lashes batting his cheeks. He seems smaller, pitiful: a broken bird in faded glamour, helpless on the couch.

Behind Janet, Magenta rattles a hollow laugh, and Riff Raff's wiry arms hold Brad in place.

"Go get her, Master," he whispers. "Get her and we can all go back to normal."

"Normal?!"

Brad can't even begin to splutter out how many things he thinks are wrong with using that word in this particular situation. Riff Raff starts hustling him towards the window.

"Shut up, Brad. Go and stand over there. Unless you'd like to help your female deactivate our master's defense programming."

"What…" Brad's shoulders go up in stiff distaste. "What's going to happen?"

"The master's going to fuck your woman into the couch, and then he's going to calm down," says Riff, tersely, still wrangling black sacks and now starting to look for floorcloths. "It's what always happens when he activates. We're luckier than the Bavarian agent's handlers. They have to keep a constant supply of absinthe in every room in case he triggers accidentally."

"Luckier?!"

"Absinthe is expensive," says Riff, pragmatically. "Sex is free."

Janet is leaning over Frank: she touches his cheek, strokes his hair, murmuring senseless platitudes in a comforting voice. He blinks bravely, submitting to her touch, curling ever closer.

"She has more sense than I gave her credit for," Riff adds. "She's set him onto playing possum. She may even be able to walk afterwards, starting from there. So much less aggressive than the other options."

"You mean…this is all for real?"

Magenta makes a scoffing sound. "How much more real did you vant it, darlink? Now either help her deal vith him or take a seat. Riff and I, ve haf cleaning to do. Once the master snaps out of it, he'll pitch a fit if he sees vhat he did to Rocky."

"Doesn't he know?"

Janet is petting Frank's mass of dark curls, and he is purring, shuddering, arching to her touch. The entire room reeks of sex as Frank's skin heats up to far beyond human heat, broadcasting the smell of him everywhere. It's like being in the lion house at the zoo, heated and musky and dangerous, and Brad finds his feet carrying him a step forwards without his being involved in their movement at all.

"Know? Ve'll be lucky if he remembers his own name. Vhat _you_ have to remember," Magenta says, picking up Rocky's dismembered foot and stuffing it into the black sack Riff is holding, "is that ze master is delicate."

"Delicate," Brad echoes, unable to take his eyes off the trail of gore on the carpet.

"Oh yes. His training vas very specifically designed to keep him as stable as possible. If he remembered everything he'd done, he'd be unable to function. Zo. He mostly forgets. Except the sex, he remembers zhat."

"But that's…that's _barbaric_."

There's a gasp from the couch, and Brad almost doesn't want to look. He does anyway. Frank has rolled Janet so she's underneath him: his smoky look is back in his eyes, and it's like he's bathed in rock-star glamour. Everything about him reeks of _want._

"Oh, sure," says Magenta. "Barbaric. You humans are zo ridiculous. If he remembered everyzing he'd be a nervous wreck. He's bad enough as it is. Far too much emotional investment in your ztupid planet. It's much easier managing his libido."

She takes a cloth from Riff and uses it to swat Brad's backside before starting on the spattered walls.

"Go on, zen."

"I…I don't…I'd never…"

"Too late, darlink, you already did. Might as well enjoy it. He's really very good. You'll probably enjoy it at least the first ten times or zo."

"So will we," smirks Riff Raff, and Brad's stomach knots in horror. But over there Janet is gasping and giggling and taking one for the team. Brad realizes, belatedly, that he's the rest of the team and that the coach has just called him up from the dugout.

He moves in, tries to pick the least erotic spot he can think of, and lays an uncertain hand on Frank's ankle. It's possibly the least confident way a man has ever touched another man.

Frank's eyes snap into focus on him immediately, starting at the hand and running up swiftly to Brad's taut, tense expression.

"Oh, Brad," he rumbles in that glorious, teasing baritone, "I'm so glad you decided to…come." A laugh, then, rising over a deep octave. "Well. Soon, anyway."

"Frankie," Janet murmurs, "don't forget me."

"Oh darling, as if I could."

It's difficult for Brad not to feel uncomfortable, watching Frank bury his head in Janet's throat, smearing the remains of that dark cherry lipstick everywhere. Here, Frank is predator, and the prey comes willingly to be devoured. It is a small gap, Brad can sense (somewhere behind the smothering, smoky fog of lust that permeates the air) between Frank's kisses and Frank ripping your jugular out with those beautiful teeth.

It's a horrible, fascinating, compelling combination. The risk of being torn apart leashed to the perhaps greater risk of losing your self-control quite completely.

He jolts as Frank's hand suddenly snakes around his neck again, but this time in a curling caress. The dark eyes are intent on his own. Janet is attentive on his other hand, taking the clever fingers with their glimmering nail polish into her mouth one by one.

"Brad, darling," says Frank, in a mock-serious scold, his fingers teasing at the nape of Brad's neck. "You're really thinking too much."

"Then what should I do?" Brad asks. The lamb bleating at the tiger. Frank frowns very slightly, as if totally bemused by this incredible lack of understanding.

"Oh, dear," he mourns. "I really am losing my touch." Sorrow suffuses the air. On the other side of the room, Riff and Magenta look up sharply, as if scenting the change in mood. This is the dangerous moment. Right here, Brad can decide their fates. If Frank feels unwanted, it can only go one of two ways. One involves wholesale death. The other involves potential rape and a powerful alien's mental disintegration. And then probably more death. Neither are good choices.

"Oh, no. No, not at all," he reassures. "You….I just…well, you know…"

The moment hangs as Frank processes. The two handlers are very still, Magenta's hand only moving slightly towards the mop handle as a potential weapon.

Then Frank chuckles, a low, filthy sound.

"I know, I know," he purrs. And the pheromones notch up another level, slamming straight past Brad's active senses and going straight for his endocrine system's metaphorical jugular. "It's all a bit…" His lips brush along Brad's jaw. "…too much. Isn't it?"

"Boy, is it," Brad agrees, in a slightly strangled tone.

"Mmmm," Frank's voice hums against his skin. "But too much can be nice." He flicks out his tongue and licks a long, quick stroke from adam's apple to collarbone, and Brad exhales sharply in an almost-whine. Frank rumbles that dirty chuckle again and then, faster than Brad would have believed possible, he's got an armful of Frank's lithe body and a very clever tongue exploring his mouth.

Brad submits with an alarmingly eager whimper. By the window, Magenta and Riff go back to their cleaning, satisfied that everything is proceeding as it should.

When Brad looks back on it afterwards, he finds he can't remember a single thing. That's not to say he doesn't remember what happened: far from it. He has a lot of visuals. And muscle aches. And bruises, both inside and out. But what he can't do is split up the experience into single events. It's a long mess of incredibly hot sex, coloured with shades of embarrassment and sound-tracked by Frank's deep, laughing drawl.

He finds out later from Magenta that the whole thing took about six hours. Six hours? If you'd asked Brad (and you wouldn't have done) before, in his old life, how many times he thought it was possible for particularly men to have sex in six hours without, er, problems of one kind or another, he would never have said "Oh, around twenty. More, if you count the parts where I was blowing him. And the part where I went with Janet and he got to watch and jerk off."

If Brad had previously harboured any doubts that Frank wasn't human, they are gone after the six hours. No human male is that priapic. No human male has sex hormones so flagrant and powerful that they can reach out, grab potential partners by the throat and make their inhibitions disappear. Frank to humans is the equivalent of a lot of alcohol and porn mags, all rolled up into one package: he can be everyone's fantasy and strip everyone's learnt prudery away. Taut male body in female sex clothes, constantly on heat, utterly unshameable.

It's no wonder he's irresistible.

Janet is asleep, curled up against Frank's side, quite naked. There are bleeding gashes on her bottom and flanks where Frank's nails have raked, but she has a sweet little smile on her face. She'd encouraged the clawing. Frank himself is flat on his back, his gloved hands folded across his chest like a mausoleum statue, his face calm. He is not, Riff explained, asleep: not exactly. He's resetting, apparently. It had happened quite suddenly, while Brad had been kissing him. Frank's whole body had suddenly gone rigid, and all the heavy glamour had seemed to drain out of the air. Alarmed, Brad had pulled back. But Frank had just given him a quiet little smile, reached up to peck him on the cheek, then lain back peaceably on the cushions, arranged himself just-so, and closed his eyes.

It's astonishing how noticeable Frank's unconsciousness is. Awake, he's a force of nature, unable to cross a room without everyone's eyes being glued to him, simply opening his mouth an act of war in the ongoing battle of the sexes. Lying here in peace, his eyes closed and his muscles relaxed, his absence makes the whole room feel less impressive. There are grubby bits and the furniture is a bit ragged, as if it's old and hasn't been well cared for. The carpet, except where Magenta has scrubbed up the bloodstains, is patchy and dusty.

With Frank awake, it's a luxurious palace.

There's even sun filtering in around the heavy curtains, weak, damp sun that speaks of early morning and rain to come. Brad had thought that it would always be night here.

"Breakfast," says a low voice, and a plate is shoved under Brad's nose. What's on it looks and smells like bacon. Hopefully, it _is_ bacon. Riff Raff looks even more cadaverous and weary than usual, the dark circles ringing his eyes deeply. "Eat. Then get out while we tend to the master."

It dawns on Brad that this is Riff being nice. He gets the feeling that other guests (and of course there must have been other guests) don't get this much conversation out of him. He eats the hopefully-bacon and glances down at Frank, surprised by how much connection, how much _attachment_ he feels to the man. How odd that is. Frank is a certifiable sex pest in clothes that would embarrass a Vegas whore, but Brad still feels weirdly protective of him.

Maybe it's the sex. That'll be it, Brad rationalizes, it's an animal thing. The alpha male protects his mate.

He doesn't dwell too deeply on which one of the two of them, exactly, could be considered the alpha male. The part of his brain that he's relentlessly squashing down suspects that it's Frank.

"Will he be all right?"

Riff looks down at Frank as if only just realizing he's still there.

"He will be our master again," he says, eventually. "He is never _all right_. I don't expect you to understand."

But nevertheless Brad thinks he almost does.

So he wakes Janet up and gets her a robe (it's huge and red and florid and silky and undoubtedly Frank's) and together they leave the room, standing awkwardly outside the door which Magenta, solemn-faced, closes on them.

There are sounds from within as Frank wakes. Not nice sounds. There is a brief reprise of the snarling, alien horror, then a long stream of calming, heavily-accented talk from Magenta, her voice rising and falling in waves, with very occasional interjections from Riff Raff.

Brad can't hear much of the detail. But Janet clutches close to his side as Frank's voice cries out "What? Rocky? _My Rocky!_ Oh, no, no, no, noooooo…." before trailing off into a pitiful wail that is heart-wrenching, really it is. Magenta continues to talk throughout, even as Frank's sustained wailing gives way to gut-clenching howls and sobs.

"He cares," Janet whispers, hiding her face against Brad's chest. "He really does care."

She can't keep that edge of surprise out of her voice. Brad is only wondering what they've told him: bearing in mind that they said Frank's memory is likely to be as full of holes as a swiss cheese after a trigger event. It's clear, though, that Rocky is gone, never to return, and that Frank has gone to pieces at the very idea. Janet's right: it's obvious there's a depth of caring buried somewhere inside that glitzy, care-free shell. But then that shouldn't perhaps be a surprise. Frank is like a magnesium flare. He burns brightly, but in short stints. His care for people and things is the same. If Frank loves you, then he loves you whole-heartedly and with the very depth of his being. He might kill for you, die for you, throw his soul at your feet. But it might only be for half an hour.


	3. Chapter 3

The sobs gradually subside. Riff's voice takes over, shorter sentences, to the point, offering instruction and suggestions rather than just comfort and explanations. Brad hears his own name mentioned, then Janet's, picking the recognition out of the low mumble of voices, but gaining no context.

If they're lucky, it's not "Oh, by the way, Master, Brad and Janet are outside. They're the ones who killed Rocky. Yes, that's right. You should definitely revenge your beautiful creation. Here, have this pickaxe."

The door opens. It's Magenta, and her face is carefully blank under the heavy makeup.

"Come in," she says. "The master would like to see you."

There's an unspoken warning in her manner. _Don't fuck this up, humans_. The situation is clearly still in the balance. Brad laces his fingers with Janet's and together they enter. The room is still gloomy. Riff stands at attention, or as close as his lanky, crooked frame will allow, behind the couch. And on the couch, Frank sitting up, his hands twisting in his lap. He sniffs, loudly. There's a very expensive-looking silk hankerchief crumpled between his fingers, and it has big smears of mascara marring its pale pink folds.

"Brad and Janet," he whispers. His voice is raw. Janet, bless her wholesome cornpone heart, quickly crouches in front of him, wrapping her small hands around his restless ones and giving them a reassuring pat.

"We're here, Frank," she says.

Frank looks a wreck. His makeup is ruined, running in free black and blue streaks down his face, making him look bruised and clownish. Incredibly, this gives him an air not of debauchery, but of miserable innocence: a little boy yelled at by his father for daring to try his mother's pretty face paints.

"I'm afraid we may have to cut short our festivities after all," says Frank, still in that achingly broken fashion, and he draws up a hand to his face and bites at one finger compulsively. "Riffy tells me I've had one of my bad turns."

"That's understandable," says Brad, somewhat gruffly, and he gives Frank's tattooed shoulder a manly nudge with his fist. It's not very helpful, but Brad just wants to do _something_ , and that was the only thing that seemed suitable. It seems to be the right thing after all: Frank gives a ghastly small smile and flits a returning pummel at Brad's midsection, before choking out a sob and looking away.

Brad manages to be only a little alarmed that even Frank's glancing play-punch is probably going to mildly bruise. Jeepers, the man is _strong_.

"How could this happen?" Frank cries, and Janet pats his hand again. "My poor Rocky. He was so young. So helpless. And for someone to just break in and, and, attack him –"

Janet makes ssssshing noises, starts stroking his jerking shoulders.

"Of course I tried to stop them," Frank manages. "I fought very hard. Very, very hard. Didn't I, freaky?"

This last is directed at Riff Raff, who seems to take the nickname in his stride. He nods, silently.

"Of course you did," echoes Janet. Now she's caught onto the fabrication, she's going to back it up with every fibre of her being. "You did everything you could."

"But they hit me, and hit me, and hit me, and overpowered me!"

The indignation is starting to creep back and itself overpower the grief. How dare someone hit Frank? How absolutely dare they? Laying violent hands on Rocky, unforgivable enough, but on Frank? Blasphemy.

"And, and and, then I woke up, and I'm here, and they're gone, and R-rocky is…g-g…"

He dissolves into tears again.

"It all seems so unbelievable," he adds, when he has enough control over his voice. "I can't believe this has happened."

Nobody else says anything. It's safer that way. Brad doesn't dare look at Riff Raff.

Is this what they have to do, every time? They live with a literal Jekyll and Hyde, a sleeper agent who can level battlefields if angered and persuade alien governments to topple by flirting with them mercilessly until they capitulate, but who will break into pieces if he remembers what he's done? Who can only be snapped out of his murderous red-haze by shagging himself into oblivion?

It's insane, like making hammers out of sugar-glass. It's surely not sustainable. Unable to help himself, Brad meets Riff's eyes and sees confirmation there.

Infiltration agents are evidently expected to have a limited window of usefulness before they quite simply implode. Even the good ones. Especially, perhaps, the good ones.

And Magenta had said that Frank was a crack agent. Cracked, and cracking.

Janet is hugging him now, tightly, ignoring the bones of the corset digging into her through the thin robe. Frank furls an arm around her in return and squeezes, reaching out his other arm and a pleading expression for Brad.

Brad goes and is hugged, that feeling of protectiveness for Frank rearing up again. Despite everything that's gone on in the castle during the last 24 hours, Brad is a good man, and in his opinion the society that has created Frank has just as certainly doomed him to lunacy and death. That's just plain wrong. So he holds Frank's head against his shoulder and even pets the damp black curls a little, because there's very little he can do that will make it right.

Close again, wrapped in friendly arms, Frank smells different. The cloying, spicy pheromones are gone, replaced with something sharper, brighter, like berries or flowers. This, Riff knows, is a good sign. The poisons of rage that result in Serial Killer Frank have been purged by a brief reversion to Sex God Frank, and here on the couch is once more a Useful Frank who can probably go to work in the lab again, hold parties, charm guests. Who can safely work his magic.

But it won't be long, now, before Riff will have to take control, put Frank down for good. This situation with Rocky is just one more nail in Frank's coffin. It brings Riff Raff no pleasure to think of this. Frank is crazy and arrogant and unbearably self-centred, but he is not impossible, as long as enough sequins, platform heels and sexual partners are provided. Some days, Frank is fun to be around. He can sing well and move like an oiled panther, and he's so very far from stupid he couldn't see it with a telescope. It's just a real shame his training has driven him batshit insane.

Riff knows what his orders are, and he remembers what happened on Unflagelon Minor, all those years ago, when an infiltration agent finally cracked and his handler didn't step in quickly enough. There's still an exclusion zone around that planet and the stories that come back from the probes are quite alarming, even by Transylvanian standards.

No, he doesn't like Frank, because quite honestly living with the man for twenty years is like being married to him, without the perceived benefits of wedlock: for example, that your spouse might feel some inclination to be nice to you. Frank is not nice. It's not his fault, but it's a fact none the less. No, Frank is at best a preening peacock and at worst a screeching harridan, but he is a valuable and useful animal and Riff knows that if he has to do it, has to – kill Frank, his brain puts in relentlessly, just say it, we're all thinking it – then it will be a failure on his part almost as much as Frank's. It would be like having to take your pet dog to be euthanized after you've been steadily starving it.

And twenty years is a long time to get attached to a pet, even a difficult and inconvenient one.

Riff Raff brings Frank a drink. It seems to help. Earth alcohol isn't at all as strong as the good stuff from home, but Frank drinks it like lemonade anyway so it probably hardly makes a difference. He takes the opportunity to direct an assessing glance at the crook of Frank's elbow, exposed where the long gloves have shucked down. It's been long enough without them having to dose him that the plasters have come off and the needle-marks are healed.

That probably hasn't helped stabilize the situation. Riff makes a mental note that as soon as he can safely leave Frank alone, he's going to get another syringe ready and make sure Frank gets an armful. Even being able to think and plan ahead like this is good news. It means they're out of the immediate danger zone and into disaster recovery.

But the best news of all is that surrounded by cuddly human arms and hit with a triple of Earth's best vodka, Frank is much, much calmer and showing definite signs of returning to stability. He's smiling again. His natural pheromone levels have plateaued, returning him to that baseline charismatic that makes him so useful. He makes Janet giggle by gently rapping the end of her nose with his finger. Brad laughs, a genuine laugh, as Frank balls up his sparkling fists and pretends to box him like a hare in spring, showing them both just how hard he fought that entirely imaginary foe to defend Rocky.

Perhaps it would be good to keep these humans around for a while. They seem…unusual. After all, they've seen Frank both at his best and at his worst, and miraculously, they haven't run screaming or indeed tried to kill anyone in the grip of righteous indignation. Instead, they're sat here having a chuckle and playing with Transylvania's most deadly weapon as if he were a lost kitten they've found in the garden.

It's not just unusual, it's fucking _unique_ , in Riff's opinion. Not even Columbia, whom Riff has always suspected is a bit lacking in the common sense the Earth God gave to baby animals, has ever been this completely oblivious to the threat Frank N Furter represents.

There's a good reason that back home Frank is codenamed "The Prince", and it's not because he gets his rocks off wearing a crown and ermine. Although in all likelihood he would. Frank could get his rocks off wearing a hemp sack and flip-flops.

"Riff Raff!"

Frank's imperious tones cut the air like a diamond knife. Riff jolts crookedly into his best upright stance, despite himself. He's so glad to hear that voice in what passes for sanity again he'd almost welcome the whip.

"Tea for everyone," Frank orders, and Riff tries not to sag. Tea. American humans don't know how to do it properly. They really should have worked harder to land on that tiny British island. Frank would have fitted in much better there: his eccentricities would have been almost acceptable. But the guidance systems had been off, Frank had been too wrapped up in research and space-sickness to be the grand pilot they all knew he was, and so here they were. America. Land of the free, but apparently not of the nice cup of tea. They hadn't had time to get an exhausted and peevish Frank trained up on a different accent and culture. So, tea it would be. Probably Earl Grey with scones and shortbread biscuits and Frank sticking his little finger out like a grand duchess. It's almost eight in the morning and Riff suddenly feels bone weary at the thought of the day stretching ahead of him. Transylvanians function so much better at night, and it's already been a very long one.

"Immediately, master," he says, and escapes. Magenta hangs back in the periphery, keeping a stern eye on Frank under the pretext of sweeping the curtains with an outsize feather duster. The duster has a morphine shot concealed in the handle.


	4. Chapter 4

_Angst angst angst. Why can't I just write porn like regular people?_

* * *

Brad can't believe the difference a little unconsciousness seems to have made. Frank is sparkling, even putting aside the makeup (which is beyond repair) and he seems to almost burst with energy and life. He cuddles up to Janet, giggling like a teenage ingénue, and is so charming that he's irresistible in a whole different way from the sexual predator of earlier. He's just plain _winning_ , and Brad wants to be his friend, stay around him, listen to him say outrageous and funny things.

It's enough to make him want to get out of here all by itself. It's like a form of magic, or possession. Here he sits, just had sex with a murderer, and yet he's thinking up excuses to stay.

He is aware of Magenta's lackluster housekeeping going on in the background, and knows why she doesn't seem all that invested in doing a good job on the cobwebs. Her attention is all on her master, her charge, and if he turns crazy she'll be there in a flash, Brad has no doubt.

He also knows that it's inevitable Frank remembers everything that happened in those six hours, and the thought makes him flush. There have been veiled and not-so-veiled references; Frank is occasionally not subtle. His time sense seems to be off, though. As far as he's concerned, he'd been interrupted during his little Brad-and-Janet orgy by Riff Raff telling him Rocky was running round the garden, and upon going to investigate had burst in on an attempted kidnapping/murder.

His outbreak of emotion over Rocky seems to be, if not forgotten, under control. Occasionally, as he talks, Brad sees him go blank. There's a moment of thought, as if Frank's subconscious knows the memory is there and is trying very hard to get through to him, but it's obvious that whichever brain cells are supposed to be playing join-the-dots are really not working. Frank shrugs off the blankness without a qualm and goes back to having fun, which is what he does best.

Riff Raff returns with tea. On a hostess trolley which rattles. There's a full tea service, like something out of a Sherlock Holmes story, although the china is a little mismatched and somewhat chipped. Frank is delighted, like a small child. He plays mother, pouring for Brad ("ladies first!") and then Janet, directing them towards the sugar bowl, the milk jug. There is a somewhat suspect looking lemon slice congealing in a dish, but nobody touches it.

Frank puts six sugars in his tea, presumably turning it into some kind of bergamot-flavoured syrup. When his lips fail to leave a red mark on the cup, he jolts, scandalized, and flaps a hand at Riff Raff, who exits once more and returns with a large, padded leather vanity case, which Frank grabs at and clutches to his chest protectively.

Brad tries to drink his tea, which is scented and without milk, and settles for occasionally sipping it. He'd rather have coffee. Janet is politely drinking hers, but her attention is only too obviously on Frank.

It's probably going to be a lot harder to convince Janet to leave here. To leave _him._ She is past making excuses: she has no doubt formulated reasons.

They need to get out of here, and soon, or they will never leave again.

Frank has abandoned his tea (or more likely knocked it back in one, Brad wasn't watching closely enough), and has started unpacking the vanity. It's like a room in itself. Bits of it unfold, and there are pots of colour and little brushes and a whole separate bag of moistened wipes.

It's only when Frank props up a large mirror (how did that fit in there) and narrows his eyes at his own reflection that Brad realizes what's going to happen and is once more horribly fascinated.

The make-up's going to come off. All of it.

He is suddenly consumed with the need to know what Frank really looks like under all that. Does he look more masculine? Is the heavy foundation hiding stubble? How _old_ is he? He doesn't seem any older than Brad himself.

Janet sets her empty cup down on the trolley with a little click and glances at Brad, almost an apology in her expression. Oh, so she too needs to know, almost desparately. From behind the couch, Riff watches closely, hardly daring to breathe in case he ruins the moment.

What _is_ it about these humans? He's never in all his years seen this before. Frank is a diva with a cause: he's never knowingly undersold – or underdressed. And yet here he is in a public room, about to take it all off, bare his face in the unashamed way that he usually bares his body. He never does this. Frank would rather walk buck naked down Fifth Avenue than appear without his face on.

Oh, by all the gods, if this isn't one of the final pieces of evidence that Riff needs to see that Frank's final deterioration is close…

Frank pouts at himself, and his shoulders raise in what looks like tension as he scuffles up a wipe from the bag. He turns his head this way and that, appraising the damage in the mirror, seeing the smudges, the smears, the bruises under the powder and paint. He doesn't seem aware of just how much attention he's attracting: but then again, he's staring at himself, and that's a hard sight to beat, In Frank's opinion at least.

He starts on the left cheekbone, where the bruises are, and the makeup paints itself in pale fleshy daubs across the wipe.

The bruising is worse than Riff had expected.

There's the marks of fingers (Rocky's presumably, grabbing out at the murderous thing that had been briefly his lover and certainly his creator) and a tiny sliver of grazing that makes Frank wince theatrically as he dabs at it. It's unlikely it does more than itch a little, in reality. Frank is a powerhouse, as Riff well knows. He's durable, flexible and hard to hurt. But then Rocky had been a masterpiece. The colour of Frank's skin, pale but not as dramatically pale as the makeup would have him appear, surfaces gradually under careful sweeps of the cloth.

Brad is struck first by how ordinary Frank looks.

No, not ordinary – that would be unfair on the sharp, almost fey features, the watchful eyes, but how human, perhaps. How human he seems. But not ordinary. Here, with one half of his face still splashed with glamour and the other half clean and free of it, he looks more bizarre than ever, like a circus act – the Two-Faced Clown. He is totally absorbed, concentrating on getting every last hint of the makeup off, making a clean canvas.

Janet makes a quiet sound, like a wildlife photographer finally catching sight of the elusive beast after weeks of solitary pursuit, and like a fellow hunter, Brad darts her a warning look. As if Frank is a deer who will be easily spooked by noise, and then they won't get to see…this.

What exactly _is_ this, anyway? When it boils down to it, it's just a transvestite taking his slap off. It's the cleanup of a night out. Shouldn't be anything special. But the absolute stillness of Riff Raff and Magenta, hanging carefully in the periphery, tells Brad that this is indeed something very special. He's just not sure why.

Frank hums, concentrating and oblivious, and with a final scrub it's all gone, and he's turning his head just-so, this way and that, once again, checking his work.

Bare-faced, he seems smaller, the mass of curls blacker against his skin. His eyes seem smaller, deeper set. His natural skin is an odd, almost golden hue, still frosted pale, like frozen honey. And oh, he looks young – it's like the pictures Brad has seen of wartime recruits who look like hardened killers when they're covered in mud and holding a gun, but who are obviously just teenagers again when they're standing, bandaged and haunted, next to their families.

He was right. In physical appearance at least, Frank's probably no older than they are. In a rush Brad find himself considering the chasm of difference in their lives. It's this, almost more than anything else right now, that brings home the sheer alien nature of these people.

Frank probably never went to high school like he and Janet did. He probably never played baseball or carried his sandwiches in a brown paper bag, or even ate sandwiches before coming here. He probably never got to play out in the dirt or go fishing for crawdads or do anything normal healthy kids do.

Brad has a momentary vision of what he imagines Transsexual, Transylvania must be like, of a younger Frank sequestered away in shadowed, velvety halls, being conditioned and trained by gothic candlelight in dark arts and darker purposes. The inevitable blood looking black in the unending gloom.

It's horrible, to humans at least. Brad wonders if Frank remembers it at all, or if he's constantly recreating himself, day by day, out of the memories he's allowed to keep. He consoles himself that Frank seems happy, on the surface. He's living a life of hedonistic abandon. And he's living it to the full. Surely it's better that he never knows the price of it?

Frank takes advantage of the luxury of no makeup to scrub his knuckles into his eyes, the first real evidence of how tired he surely is, and then darts a sidelong look at Brad. He draws a breath in, sharply, as if he's only just remembered he has company.

Riff hears that breath, and mentally starts a countdown. This could be bad. The last time they'd had even a gentle conversation with Frank about how he was more likely to be accepted in earth society if he wore, perhaps, just a touch less mascara, there had been a week-long fury. It had not been pretty (unlike Frank, who at the time had been wearing rainbow blusher and the very last of the Black Cherry gloss) and it had had Consequences.

But Frank just looks away, quickly, as if embarrassed (Riff knows this is hardly likely, so what the hell it is he has no idea and is almost afraid to find out) and then reaches for his sponges and starts loading up with cream foundation.

Watching the mask go back on is almost as fascinating as the reverse. Frank is like an artist, and a quick one – the smooth white mask is replaced in moments, and the cheekbones are swiped so rapidly that it seems the dusky shadowing has appeared out of nowhere. What on anyone else would look like panda eyes become pure hooded seduction in peacock colors under Frank's deft hands.

Brad finds himself unconsciously pressing his own lips together as Frank applies lipstick, then gloss on top, and then it is done, normality (such as it is) is restored, and Frank beams with utterly wicked delight, flashing triumphant teeth at them all.

Hooray for the return of Useful Frank, thinks Riff Raff, only half sarcastically, and is about to trade a look with his sister when Frank's expression alters sharply, and a sound echoes through the house. Not loud, not here, away from the main reception rooms and the lab, but unmistakable.

Somebody is knocking at the door.


	5. Chapter 5

People knock, Riff is aware, even as he moves automatically to keep hard on the platform heels of Frank, who has shot up from his seat so rapidly he's scattered face cream and bottles of 4711 everywhere. It's a thing they do here on Earth. It seems to be tied into the whole intensely boring privacy thing they have.

There are fewer doors back home, and while people do tend to announce themselves before entering the room, it tends to be more of a grand entrance than a humble request.

The amount of doors in the castle alone is baffling, really. Yes, have doors to the outside, it seems to get very cold and wet a lot here, you don't want that sort of weather getting inside. But the specifications for building the ship had come from Earth itself, and they were very clear that pretty much everywhere you had a way into a room, you had to have a door. Authenticity was everything, especially for infiltration purposes. So – doors.

Riff had always liked Frank's lab because it resolutely didn't have any. It's one of the few bits of the ship that makes him feel like he's back home. But then again, humans didn't usually get to see that part. It's nice that there's still a few home comforts, a few reminders of where they've come from.

Now Frank has got his war face on, and Riff isn't too unhappy about that. He hurries alongside, grabbing up the nearest evening wrap which has been discarded on a bannister and swinging it around his master's shoulders in practiced fashion, Frank slinging his bare arms into it fluidly, hardly pausing in his strut. Those vertiginous heels glittering and glimmering in perfect counterpoint as he moves. Oh yes. Frank's firing on all cylinders again and everything about him is co-ordinated, everything's part of the dance, the performance. Excellent.

By all the gods, though, he _mustn't_ be allowed to answer the door himself. Not again. Not after last time. That whole thing with the delivery boy could have been so easily avoided. But Frank was so easily bored, and so fast, so strong when he put his mind to something, and he'd beaten Riff to the door with a twenty gripped in one sparkling fist and a huge, predatory smirk on his lips.

The human hadn't stood a chance. Nobody did, when Frank wanted something. Especially if it was sex.

Riff had taken the short end of his sister's temper that night, as they were cleaning up in the drawing room.

"Vhat, vas calling for fresh whores suddenly my responsibility?"

"My beautiful sister," Riff had said, wearily, "It was a mistake. He distracted me and was too fast. It won't happen again."

"Mistake! Hah!"

She'd thrown a vase at him. Frank wasn't the only one with a temper.

"Vhat if you forget to feed him next? He starves? Ve haf to go home and pay for him? You know how expensive zhey are!"

Riff had put up with the shouting. It was simpler, and after all she was at least a little bit right. The care and feeding of Dr Frank N Furter was very straightforward. You gave it enough food, drink, drugs, admiration, paper, pens, makeup, hosiery, flattery, deference and sex, and it would perform admirably. You missed out on any one of those variables and it would wobble, waver, sulk, whip you, and (in extreme cases) perform ornamental and unstoppable genocide.

And if there was one thing more expensive than replacing a fully trained Transylvanian agent, it was mopping up an unplanned genocide.

Hence, here is Riff Raff, trying very hard to push past Frank while looking like he's not pushing past him in the least, in an attempt to beat Frank to the door before something regrettable happens. Frank is an aimed weapon, ridiculously fast even in six-inch heels, and he is biting his lower lip in (for once) a non-seductive fashion. Evidently, post-trigger, he is still on high defense alert, preparing to defend his ship and, in all likelihood, his newest sex toys. One thing you could definitely say for Frank, Riff thinks, is that he took to the defensive training like a natural once they worked out he had a personal possessive streak a mile wide for any of the many and varied bits of junk he considered "stuff of his". All they'd had to do was broaden that streak to include the ship and the mission and bang, they had a guard dog supreme. Literally bang, he supposes. Anything Frank's had the chance to fuck instantly gets nudged up the list of "stuff of his" a few levels. Maybe they should have worked out some way of having him screw the ship itself, that might have reduced the need for corrective psychotherapy by a few weeks.

He finally manages to get ahead, coming within a whisker of actually body-checking Frank (and wouldn't _that_ just have earnt him a whipping) as they cross the lobby, and gets to the big wooden door just as the overly impatient visitor knocks again, and rings the bell for good measure.

"Allow me, Master," he says, and gives it all the swooping bow and cringing I-am-your-humblest-of-humble-servants he can manage, considering the headache he's nursing. Frank rolls his eyes in exaggerated boredom and lays a hand on the door paneling. He glances back over his sequined shoulder at Riff, challenging, the shadowed expression unreadable.

He knows, thinks Riff, not for the first time. Some part of him remembers that he is a caged dog, and it presents itself in this childish rebellion. He wants me to fawn over him because the dominant part of his brain insists that he loves it. But the part that remembers, the part that knows, it drives him to this. It's pretty frightening, whenever it surfaces, and Riff doesn't like being faced with it one bit.

"It may be raining, Master," he manages, meeting that knowing stare and almost stammering. "You'd get your new shoes wet."

Frank strokes the door, caressing, still not stepping back, still not dropping gaze. Riff wonders, very briefly, if this is it. Will this be the last time he can look at Frank and not see a smoking corpse of his own creation?

He finds this idea disturbs him more than he'd thought it would. How strange. And in this perturbation, the words come, the right words. Perhaps he won't have to kill Frank today.

"Please, Master. I am so useless in all other ways. You have told me this so many times. Let me do this one simple thing that I am barely capable of. Let me open the door, Master. Let me show your visitor to a suitable room. Surely you must make an entrance for them."

That does it. The training locks in, and Frank tosses his head like a flighty blood horse, breaking the impasse. He click-clacks off into the depths of the house, presumably to throw on some new and terrifying garb and plan an intimidating show.

Riff Raff sighs as the door is banged once again, and reaches up to open the bolts. He can hear the rain again outside, and is absurdly glad, as this means at least the daylight won't be glaring.

He hears movement behind him, too late, he's already opening the door –

"Great Scott! Scotty!"

It's the earthling, the male, Brad, all done up and pompous in a blue robe, and he's gurning ludicrously out at the newcomer, who is sitting on the doorstep in the rain and squinting furiously through spattered spectacles. Here is a man who practically radiates repressed disapproval. Riff's almost one hundred percent certain he takes showers with all his clothes on to prevent any possibility of him catching sight of his own cock.

Wait, _sitting_ in the rain? Do earthlings generally come with chairs attached?

"Brad?" snaps the incredibly inconvenient human, reaching up to wipe water from his glasses. "What are you doing here?"

Oh please, Riff thinks, unable to control the slight, crooked smile that's spreading across his face, let me tell him what – or rather who - you've been doing here.


	6. Chapter 6

It's like an inoculation of normality, seeing Dr Scott here. Brad is delighted in a way he hadn't previously imagined possible. This could be it. This could be the piece of reality that smashes this peculiar, erotic nightmare into dust. He quashes the pang of regret the thought causes very quickly. "I was coming to see you," Brad says, stepping out, hand already outstretched, heedless of the rain that's battering his robe and bare feet. Dr Scott is looking him up and down with an unreadable expression, and already has a finger raised in the universal I-have-a-question pose, but Brad discovers he's not quite ready to answer questions at the moment. He covers this up by gripping the man's hand in a strong, confident handshake, which Scott returns automatically.

"Janet and I – I mean my fiancée, Janet Weiss –"

"She's here too?"

Scott's looking alarmed, and at Brad's side Riff Raff gives a stifled giggle. The doctor's voice is low, serious and urgent.

"Brad, you have to listen to me, it's not –"

Riff Raff's glee is short lived. A colder, crueler mask drops down over his thin face, and his change in posture is obvious to Brad, who's closest. The atmosphere becomes dangerous, and Brad's skin crawls. Something terrible is going to happen unless he does something now.

He hustles behind the wheelchair, gripping the handles, hefting the wheels over the threshold before either the butler or the doctor can protest, plastering a look of helpful bonhomie on his face.

"Let's get you inside, Dr Scott! Jeez, it's really raining buckets out here, huh? You're getting soaked. Maybe we can find you a towel, right? Mr Riff?"

The mutinous, murderous look on Riff Raff's face grows ever darker as Brad twitters inanely across the entrance hall, steering his old tutor around the grisly clock and the leopard doing a striptease with a snake. It's important that he doesn't stop. If he stops then there will be questions, ones that he doesn't want to answer or has no real way of answering. Or Riff Raff will intervene and the madness will start all over again.

He makes it almost to the door of the inner room, the one where the party had been in full swing last night - ignoring Dr Scott's demands that he turn around, stop, slow _down_ , Brad – and then the door slams open, the air splits with a devastating _crack_ and Brad draws his suddenly stinging hand up with a cry.

Frank's right there, framed in the doorway with the light behind him, and he's got – good GOD – a bullwhip? Brad's hand is red and sore from the impact.

And indeed (god help them all) Frank is all dressed up like a biker babe in fringed leather and aviator shades, a leather studded pseudo-pilot's cap rammed down over those crazy curls, and his lips pouted in anger. He strides forward, flexes his arm and sends the whip curling toward Riff Raff, who cringes away, hands raised to deflect the blow. The noise of the _crack_ is unbelievably loud.

Frank is breathing hard through his nose and evidently severely pissed by this development in his day. He sashays forwards, coiling the whip around himself, his (oh look at that. Calf-high peep-toe stiletto boots) clicking like percussion on the floor.

It's insane that he still manages to look gorgeous, even though he's clearly homicidally inclined right this second and has just caused actual bodily harm to two people in the room. The badge glinting from the front of the cap reads "SEXY" and has a crimson pair of lips pouting. Brad clears his throat with an effort, looks away, focuses on Dr Scott instead.

He's expecting Dr Scott to look terrified. Or possibly confused-disgusted. But what he sees is neither of those things. Dr Scott is glaring at Frank N Furter like a kid who's just had his toys stamped on by the bigger kid at the play park.

They're both unbelievably angry at each other and Brad has no idea why.

"So, Frank N Furter, we meet at last," Dr Scott grinds out, and Frank smirks at him, ripping off the shades to flash those dark eyes. He's obviously still really annoyed, but he's going to play games. He's going to have fun with it.

Riff, cowering in his corner and rubbing the stinging line the whip has left across his upper arm, watches with trepidation.

So this is the earthling scientist that the master has been obsessing about. He'd expected him to be taller. Or prettier. Or something. This wasn't what he expected, anyway, from what he's managed to gather during Frank's rants and screeds of rambling reports. This is a small, clearly physically incapacitated human who smells vaguely of mothballs and desperation. There's also something oddly familiar about him that is starting to gnaw away at Riff's confidence.

Frank snaps a stiletto up onto the arm of the wheelchair, leaning forward and getting right up in the face of the earthling, The air is getting heavy again with the weight of Frank's emotional state, and Scott flattens back in his chair, despite his own angry bravado. Frank's leg is inches from his cheek.

"So we do indeed, Dr Scott," Frank purrs, giving it all the music-hall villain he can without actually having a moustache to twirl. "So nice to finally meet you…in person. Mmm-hmm."

His voice descends into a throaty rumble of laugh. Brad's own throat tightens at the sound. Dr Scott is obviously deeply uncomfortable, and doesn't Frank just know it? He swoops forward even closer, swinging his leg down, straddling the man in the chair, seating himself across the blanket-covered knees.

"Your mind tricks won't work on me, Furter," Scott says, but he's holding very still as Frank leans in, head tilted, laughing red lips parted to show tongue, close enough now that it looks like he's scenting Scott's hair. "I know what you are. Aliens!" His eyes flick to Brad, with a hint of triumph.

Brad finds he can't raise a gasp at this. Maybe yesterday he could have. Riff, behind them, hisses through his teeth like an angry snake. Scott, bereft of Brad's supportive surprise, jolts back as Frank licks his ear maliciously, to make him jump.

"Come now, Dr Scott," says Frank. "Did you really think Brad was just here by accident? Oh, _baby_. Such charming innocence. He was bait for you, darling."

Running his lips across Scott's neck, clamping down hard on the man's arms with his gloved hands as Scott tries to shove him off. "Brad's in on the whole thing."

And Brad finds himself suddenly caught in the midst of a pair of burning stares, the very unwilling centre of attention. One is Riff's. The skinny alien is almost sneering in disbelief.

Surely, _surely_ there's no chance that Frank's actually been planning this? Frank is brilliant, a scientist, a pilot and a superb operator, but his ability to plan ahead for more than five minutes is severely limited by his overbearing lust and programmed amnesia. That's what Riff is here for. The idea that Frank's been hatching some kind of scheme _and Riff hadn't noticed_ is unthinkable. Horrendous. Oh gods let it not be true. Please let it be some kind of mental torture the master has in mind for this Scott person.

The other stare is Frank's, turning to look over his own shoulder out of Riff Raff's eyeline, his hands still kneading Scott's arms in an offensively uninvited intimate caress, and Brad finds his look even more worrying, on a number of levels.

Frank's lying and Brad knows it.

Frank's asking – no, almost _pleading_ \- for Brad's help, and Brad knows it.

That feeling of impending doom, that sword-of-Damocles moment, is back again and much, much stronger this time.

If he doesn't back Frank up here, there's going to be some kind of explosion. He has a sudden, foggy premonition that not all of them will survive. There's smoke and dead bodies and he can't find anyone he cares about, lost in the miasma. No Janet. No Frank. No Dr Scott. Everything gone, even the creepy Riff Raff and his cold-eyed sister.

He doesn't know what to do.

And Frank – unbelievably – lowers his gaze, the stupidly long lashes brushing his cheeks, resignation creeping into the combative set of his shoulders. Brad shudders. Is it possible that he's not the intended prisoner here, but the intended _rescuer_?

No. No, it can't be.

"Master?" hisses Riff, who hasn't caught any of this unspoken conversation. " _Master_?"

"Oh, shut up, freaky," Frank snarls. He slams upright, shoving Scott's wheelchair backwards so that it rebounds from the wall with a rattle, and Scott cries out. Frank uncoils the whip warningly, his body tensing and tautening as he winds up for the blow.

"Wait."

Brad can't look at any of them.

"Frank."

He can feel Riff Raff's murderous gaze on his back, knows by the creaking shift of leather that Frank has halted, is looking too.

"Don't hurt him," Brad whispers. "I did what you wanted."

He's no longer even sure who he's talking to.


	7. Chapter 7

Riff Raff feels as if someone's just dumped a bucket of ice water down the back of his neck. Inside, though, he's on fire, his anger roaring up in him like volcanic bile.

He's angry at himself more than anything. How could this happen? How is it even possible that Frank has managed to keep his kittenish brain together long enough to plot something this complicated? He has to be reminded which chemicals are in which jars if you leave him alone for more than five minutes! Yes, he's a genius, but genius is notoriously fickle and hard to predict. It needs focus. It needs to be _managed_. It does not – cannot – manage itself. I mean look at it. Standing there with a hand propped on its hip like it's touting for punters on a street corner? No. No, this is not what's going on. It can't be. He pushes down his own anger at his fears and tries to be angry at Frank instead. It's easy to be angry with Frank. The man can be infuriating while eating cereal.

He's not the only one who's angry, though. The little human in the chair is almost puce with outrage. His accent's changed, too. To something almost Transylvanian. Rougher, harsher. Interesting.

"Vhat is he talking about, Brad?"

Yes, Brad, Riff thinks. What _is_ he talking about? Do tell. I can't wait to hear.

But he doesn't get to hear, because the infuriating cereal-eater sweeps into the breach in a swirl of cologne and studded leather.

"Brad, Brad, Brad," Frank mocks. "Oh, as if this is all about Bra _aaa_ d. You don't talk to _him_ , Dr Scott. You talk to _me_."

And he casually loads the word _me_ with all those years of training, those dangerous pheromones, so that it hits the humans like a slap round the face. Brad backs up a few steps without meaning to. It suddenly feels like Frank's about half a second away from knifing him with the pointy end of a metal detangling comb. Dr Scott, on the other hand, has his eyes riveted to Frank's like a mouse caught in the gaze of a snake. He can't seem to look away, although the sweat standing out on his brow and the way his moustache is twitching, caterpillar-like, suggests that he'd really like to.

Frank grins, sharkish, and starts a strut around the room, the clicks of his heels punctuating _– lookatme lookatme lookatme look_. He's in full play, now, and Riff still has to admire it, even after all these years and the memories he has of being with Frank during the training, mopping up the blood and the vomit and the tears and –

And this is it, isn't it.

Oh, this is actually it.

Numbly, still operating almost on autopilot, he mentally opens the file in his head he'd hoped never to have to use. Every handler dreams that their charge will die of natural causes. Even agent suicide is better than this. This…this is the nightmare, not the dream.

There are criteria in the file. When dealing with such expensive and almost irreplaceable resources, it is so important to be sure. Back home Riff's mentor had been very clear on the fact that when you knew, you just knew. It would be obvious, she'd said. And she was right.

It _was_ obvious, when you actually looked at it, stripped away the years of familiarity, because even Frank wasn't awful _all_ the time.

Erratic behavior outside of normal baseline parameters.

Evidence of programming breaking down, allowing baseline personality control of the body.

Evidence of memories returning.

Insubordination beyond that consistent with agent's assigned cover story.

It's all there, even down to the over-reliance on make-up and increased need to break into song at any given moment.

And Frank's powers are starting to leak.

What do you do when your nuclear reactor starts to leak?

That's right. You shut it down.

Riff's body loses all its rage, and instead he goes cold and quiet inside, like winter. Silently, he withdraws from the scene, melting into the shadows. It's entirely possible Frank will kill everyone in the room before he gets back, but that hardly matters now. It's more important to fetch Magenta, break the news, and get everything ready. There are things that need to be done.

Because by all the gods, if Frank's going down, Riff's going to do it properly. Frank deserves that much for the years of service he's put in.

Riff Raff's departure goes entirely unnoticed by Brad, and indeed Dr Scott, who are both riveted to the parading figure of Frank in front of them. Brad particularly doesn't know what to do with himself. He feels entirely responsible for what's going on.

What has he done? What has he agreed to, with those few simple words? He has made himself complicit in something he knows nothing about. Even considering the group sex party and eating the hopefully-bacon, this has to be the most ill-advised thing he's done since getting here.

For the longest time, Frank continues to prowl, not looking at either of them, back and forth like a tiger in a cage. The silence, save for the click of his heels, is unbearable. What is he waiting for? Do it! Say it! Do _something_!

"Furter," Scott manages, his lips and voice sounding dry, because Frank's emotions are all over the room and it's making it hard to think straight, let alone talk. "I don't know what your game is here, but you won't win. I've got records. I have proof. My nephew Eddie –"

Frank turns like a snake and lunges forward again, snatching Scott by the throat and hauling him up so that the man is hanging suspended above his chair. Brad gives a short cry of outrage, but is arrested in his own start forward by the expression on Frank's face.

Frank looks…frightened. It's not easy to do when you're holding a struggling old man by the neck and almost strangling him. But he manages it. No, more than frightened. Desperate. There it is again, it seems to Brad, that odd certainty that Frank is looking to him and Dr Scott with _hope_.

Like they're a last hope, an only hope.

"I know," Frank hisses, his eyes bright with almost-tears, Scott gulping and gagging and turning purple-faced in his grasp. " _I know you have._ I know you know all about me, Dr Scott. You're clever. The cleverest human I found. I made _sure_ –"

"You're killing him!" Brad manages, at last, and Frank drops the man like a hot brick. His leather-gloved hands are shaking.

"Help me," he whispers.

Magenta takes the news very well. Better than Riff, if he's being honest, but then Magenta was always the more pragmatic of the two.

He's told her bluntly, never mind the wide-eyed stare of the human female also in the room, and Magenta doesn't react in any way other than to get up and leave.

She returns shortly with the suits. It's suspiciously fast, making Riff wonder if she's been prepared for this for a lot longer than he has. Maybe she's been humouring him. Seeing the signs for far longer, but not stepping in because she knows that under it all Riff feels fully responsible for Frank.

Responsibility. That's all it is. Remember that.

When she's dressed, and her hair is set, she looks beautiful. She has always been beautiful. Riff, automatically pulling his hair up and back, watches her as she readies the laser. Hopefully they won't need to use it, if they're in time. If they're in time, they can take Frank quietly, and once he's deactivated, give him the needle, just let him go to sleep and never wake up. His body can be put into cold storage for the journey home.

The clothes feel almost unfamiliar after all this time. Riff hasn't worn them since the final days of Frank's training. Despite the comfort of feeling like home, it's a cold comfort.

He meets her eyes. She gives him a smile, but it's a pretty bleak one. And she nods. It's time.

They don't bother even trying to answer the bleating of the human female as they leave. There's no time right now. There is only the Duty, and afterwards the mop-up.

When it comes to it, it's almost textbook.

Except for the one incredibly major (Majors) point where it isn't.

Riff Raff pushes the door open with a deliberate bang, aimed at getting Frank's attention. Frank is huddled up close, menacingly, to the human in the chair, with the Brad male hanging about dolefully nearby. Good. They're not dead yet. Frank's not that far gone.

Eye contact is important, the file says. And Frank looks up beautifully at the bang of the door, his lip curling in an automatic sneer –

The effect of seeing the uniforms again is classic. Just as it should be. Frank's been conditioned to react submissively in the presence of those outfits. It's one of the earliest bits of the training, to get the agent pliable and easy to direct.

Frank pales, visible even under the makeup. He freezes in place. His shoulders come up, defensive: his head dips, submissive. Excellent, thinks Riff, shoving down his own mix of pride and sorrow at the sight (evidence of the good training, evidence of his failure to keep Frank stable any longer). Now. The words. Start with the full name. Keep to the tone, the agreed tune.

Deactivation protocols are always sung on Transylvania. It removes the possibility that anyone will accidentally deactivate an agent. It's possible that someone might guess enough of the words to cause a problem. But the tune? Only Riff, Magenta and Frank know it. The words without it are not enough. Riff gives it his all. Frank deserves this to be done right.

"Frank N Furter. It's all over."

Frank flinches. Behind his eyes Riff imagines he can almost see the programming clicking into place, draining the adrenaline, setting the hormones pumping dopamine instead.

"Your mission is a failure. Your lifestyle's too extreme."

Frank gives a whole-body shudder, breath escaping his red lips in a whine. He obviously feels horribly uncomfortable, mentally and physically, and Riff can't help but feel a pang of sympathy. Deactivation removes an agent's access to his triggers, taking him back to that pliant state from the first two years of training, rendering him effectively helpless. Not a nice feeling

"Wait," Frank gasps. "Please. I can explain."

Riff Raff's turn to flinch. Agents shouldn't be able to talk during this. Truth be told, Frank should already be cowering on the floor with his hands up, but Frank's always been unusually strong. This is just doubling up on Riff's conviction that Frank's time has come. He doesn't stop. There's not much left to sing now.

"I'm your new commander. You now are my prisoner."

And with that delivery, Frank folds, like he's been punched in the gut, like he feels the sickest he's ever felt in his life. He doubles over. He fights to stay on his feet, but it doesn't work: he drops to his knees. Incredibly, he's still talking. He shouldn't even be able to make eye contact, but his pleading gaze is fixed on Riff.

"No. No, no, no…"

Riff can't stand it. He turns his head, looks at Magenta instead. She has the laser levelled at Frank and is breathing slow and deep to calm herself. Obviously Frank's ability to resist his deactivation is upsetting her too. "We return to Transylvania," he murmurs to her, against the backdrop of Frank's heartbreaking begging. "Prepare the transit beam."

It's at this point that the earthling, Brad, makes a noise.

It's not an angry noise or a shocked noise. It's just a noise. A getting-of-attention sort of noise. Even the human scientist looks confused by it.

"You're going to kill him?" Brad questions. "What's his crime?"

This is such a monumentally good and also incredibly irritating question that it actually stops Riff in his tracks.

What is Frank's crime?

Frank has done everything – _everything_ – that he has been trained for. He has been a superlative agent, a credit to Riff's training and handling, and he has remained stable (in relative terms) for far longer than an awful lot of others. This planet, though, has been a trial in more ways than one. Wretched bloody planet. Frank had got far too attached to it, far too quickly. He'd loved the humans and their ways and how easily they could be swayed by his influence. They'd been as addictive to him as any drug. He was like a child in so many ways: mercurial, petulant, easy to assuage with toys and games.

Riff should have done something when he'd realised. Should have cancelled the mission. Should have taken Frank into additional training to keep him in check. But there'd been something in him that had taken pleasure in seeing Frank's full (and let's face it, terrifying) power deploy, seeing Frank's job align for once with who Frank was inside, seeing Frank – what? Riff's mind asks him – seeing Frank _happy_ for once?

It was probably a long time since he'd seen Frank genuinely happy, rather than the layers of conditioned hedonism.

That delivery boy, for example. Why do you think Frank was so angry when the human turned out to be false? That human had made him happy.

Riff stares at Brad, dumbly, unable to answer the question, and the inability turns into rage, the same rage from earlier coming roaring back at twice the strength. Fucking Frank! Why couldn't he just have been a nice, meek little agent addicted to absinthe or satsumas or something equally simple? Why couldn't he just have burnt out after eight years like most of them did? Why did he have to hang on, doing his work, gradually getting more and more human and more and more ungovernable as he fed his addiction?

Why did he have to make Riff Raff _feel_ things about him? Handlers don't feel for their charges! Handlers handle. They protect. They discipline. They _punish_. Because it's their job. And Frank needs to be punished. For making him _feel_.

Do your job, Riff Raff.

On the floor, Frank, who has given up on mercy, is sobbing silently into his hands. Riff, his wounds (both physical and mental) stinging him sorely, rounds on him, seeing nothing but red rage.

It is the work of a moment to take that step to the right, and bend to scoop up the discarded bullwhip.

The crack sounds very loud in the room, but Frank doesn't cry out.

Not once.


	8. Chapter 8

_**Guest and Cascaper, you are my review heroes :D. I love you!**_

* * *

Janet hasn't got the slightest idea what's going on, but she has an idea that none of it is good.

In he'd come, elegantly creepy Riff Raff, with a face like the wrath of God, and Magenta (who'd been watching Janet from under hooded eyelids and occasionally smirking in a horrifying way which had made Janet want to run) had taken one look at him and gone as rigid as a statue.

"It's time. Get dressed," had been all he'd said. Something which apparently was heavy with meaning, as Magenta had immediately disappeared from the room and come back with –

Oh. Well, those weren't going to win any fashion awards.

Nevertheless, the outfits seemed to be greatly important, and despite Janet's increasingly nervous attempts to get some answers, neither of the aliens seemed to want to talk. They got changed (Janet, still capable of raising a furious blush, apparently, had turned her back when Riff's trousers came off) in silence.

And then they were gone.

This had started to get bad when Brad had left, when the doorbell had rung. It's starting to feel like it's getting worse. Janet clutches the big red silk robe even tighter around her and tries not to panic. Brad will come back. Maybe it's another party. Those gold costumes sure looked glitzy enough.

Then she starts to hear sounds. Cries. Shouts. Her heart hammers. Is that – but it _can't_ be – Dr Scott's voice? And Magenta's rough accent, raised in alarm, Riff Raff's in counterpoint - absolute, towering rage.

Running feet outside. Slams and thumps. Doors opening and closing, struggles happening.

And then nothing. For what feels like hours but is probably only about five minutes.

Just when Janet thinks she can't stand the suspense any longer, Magenta slams back into the room, her face slack and predatory, and a line of blood splashed along her cheek. Before Janet even has time to open her mouth for the scream, Magenta is on her, grabbing her, dragging her along and bundling her down corridors. There isn't time to see anything but blurs. She thinks that maybe she sees Brad, in his blue robe, for mere seconds. Maybe he is being manhandled by Riff Raff. Maybe not.

And then she's in a new room, small, barely lit, and Magenta is scowling fiercely as she closes the door on her.

There is the click of a lock. She's trapped.

To Janet's credit, she manages to limit her tears of fright and frustration to just over two minutes. Then, because she has learnt at least a little practicality, she wipes her eyes on the robe's hem and starts to investigate her prison.

It's probably a guest room for unwanted guests, she decides. There's a big double bed in there, but not a neatly made one – the sheets and pillows are lumped up any old how – and some boxes, which once examined prove to be empty except for a lot of straw, presumably used for packing.

It only occurs to her when she goes to look at the bed more closely that it's entirely more likely this is just a sex room. There are (mostly) white cords looped around the posts of the headboard, and, when she cautiously lifts a pillow, a small bottle of some kind of oil which smells like Frank's skin.

Frank.

Janet, distracted into automatically trying to straighten the bed like the good little housewife she always thought she wanted to be, uncovers a handcuff locked around the bedframe.

And there's a hand in it.

She can't help herself. She squeaks in shock and jumps back, all at once assuaging one fear and creating another.

The hand is attached to a living person – thank heavens – but that living person turns out to be Frank, who was apparently hiding under the bedding. At her shriek, he scrabbles off the mattress and onto the floor, arm held painfully outstretched by the restraining cuff. A shortie leather biker jacket hangs mournfully by one sleeve from his free hand.

Janet and Frank stare at each other from either side of the bed, neither moving. Or at least Janet stares: Frank can't seem to hold eye contact, and keeps darting tiny glances up to assess Janet's expression before fixing his gaze resolutely on the carpet.

He's clearly very, very broken.

Like Janet, it seems he's been shoved in here wearing exactly what he was wearing when it all went wrong. To Janet, the biker whore look is new, but it couldn't look more pitiful given Frank's current state. He's suddenly become the very picture of a victim of sexual predation, rather than the perpetrator.

There's blood on the sheets, Janet realizes, large smears of it. She moves her hand away from it, slowly.

Blood on the sheets, and Frank is shivering.

Judging by everything she's ever seen him schlep around the place wearing, Janet doesn't think he's the sort of person who gets cold easily. If he was able to catch pneumonia, let's face it, he'd have done it by now. Her terror starts to creep back in.

"Frank?" she says, when it becomes clear that he isn't going to break the silence first. Surely she's imagining his flinching away from her voice. "Frank, what's happening? I'm scared. Where's Brad? Where's _anybody_?"

There's a pause, while Frank wets his lips nervously and looks at the floor. Then in an imitation of Brad so eerie and accurate the hairs stand up on the back of Janet's neck, he whispers:

"It's all right, Janet. Everything's going to be all right."

And Janet snaps.

It's too much. On top of everything, on top of all her fears and the experiences of the night. And there's an obvious target. She lunges across the bed and backhands Frank across the face. To her surprise, he doesn't retaliate. He makes a low, miserable sound like a cat in a trap and struggles to get away, yanking fruitlessly at his manacled arm. Janet flails at him, relentless, taking out her discomfort and fright and all the insecurities the night has brought her.

"Oh! It's your fault. You're to blame!"

There's blood on the sheets.

Janet catches sight of it again out of the corner of her eye, and coupled with Frank's odd behavior it makes her stop her somewhat ineffective attack. Frank is huddled against the wall, his back exposed to her, making short gasping sounds like a fish out of water. His frosted-honey skin is lined with red, and what she can see of the underbust corset is soaked darker with blood.

It's horrible.

"Did they do this to you?" she whispers.

He doesn't answer. Janet bends down and takes a closer look. Her own slap hasn't left a mark on him. Goodness knows what they must have used to cut that tough body. Frank is very still under her scrutiny, as if trying not to attract any more unwanted attention. When she raises a tentative hand to touch one of the lacerations, he cowers.

"Oh no, no," Janet murmurs, horrified. She has just struck him, after all. It's no wonder he's wary, given the state he's in. "I won't hurt you. I won't hurt you."

He lets her touch him. His skin is cold, a million miles removed from the sultry heat of earlier. Is he ill after all? More likely he's in shock from the beating. Janet pulls down a handful of the sheets and wraps Frank, then, as an afterthought, herself as well, up in them. They sit there together in a cocoon, Janet's body heat gradually warming them both.

She becomes aware that although it's definitely getting warmer around them, Frank's doing everything he can to keep his distance. Which isn't much, given that he's shackled to the bed and can't move more than an arm's length.

She'll have to do something about those cuffs if she's going to get him out of here, and it isn't even odd to her that she's immediately set on taking him with her. Of course she's taking him. She can't leave him here like this. He's obviously just as much of a prisoner as she is.

But this is all pipedream. Escape is a flight of fancy right at this moment, as Janet doesn't have nearly enough resources at her disposal. Not yet. Back to the matter at hand, then. Frank's in shock, she needs to warm him up, calm him down, get him into a fit state to move and help her, or neither of them will be getting anywhere, let alone out of here.

All business now, she puts both hands on his shoulders, smiles down at his bowed head and cast-away eyes with her most cheerful, optimistic smile.

"Come on, then," she says, brightly. "Up and at 'em! This won't do at all."

Encouraged by the fact that he hasn't immediately flinched away, she continues.

"Get over here, you," she coos. His eyes flick up at the invitation, over her body, down again. Janet feels a surge of triumph, and not a little return to her brand-new lust of earlier – well really, it's not as if Frank's suddenly lost _all_ his attractiveness along with his confidence – and she feels confident enough in her tactics to try the gentlest of scolding. "Come on, Frankie. I _know_ you're not shy!" She swats him, so very lightly, with her fingertips, and giggles coquettishly, putting some of her memories of their time together earlier into the sound. Then, when he doesn't retreat from that, she reaches out, emboldened, and takes his unbound hand. She slides the jacket off his wrist, and then firmly places the hand on the curve of her waist.

Frank shudders. When the violence he's evidently still expecting doesn't come, he blinks rapidly, confused.

"You can touch me," Janet says, nodding automatically to give the permission he hasn't quite asked for.

And still not quite meeting her eyes, he wriggles in that absurdly fluid fashion, like his bones are made of oil, and molds his body to hers. As if she's the last thing in the universe that makes any sense.

And Janet clutches him to her, feeling his heart hammer, feeling him gradually start to relax, feeling his tentative touch on her and then his lips on her neck, moving down. Her expression as she stares into space over his working head is grim, set, dangerous, and so entirely unlike the old Janet Weiss that even Brad might not have recognized her.

Janet is getting the hell out of here and she no longer cares how she does it.


	9. Chapter 9

_**Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!**_

* * *

Magenta is having a bad day.

It started badly, she thinks, as she turns the key on the makeshift cell. She should have known it would. Frank's parties were always risky, but she'd hoped that the fact they had fresh meat on the premises would keep him stable enough.

How wrong it was possible to be, huh?

She swipes the back of her hand across her face as she walks, clearing the worst of Frank's blood spatter. Getting him and the female out of the way had been the easy part. Frank was deactivated and had been easy to handle, and the female hadn't the brains of a rabbit.

No, it was her brother who was going to be the problem. And this she hadn't anticipated, at least not in this way.

Oh, she knew he'd got far too attached to Frank. But that was Riff all over. Too much heart. To be fair, it was probably what had made him such a brilliant trainer and handler. He cared. He wanted Frank to be the best, and he'd personally done everything that was needed to make that happen – the blood, the education, the indoctrination, everything. He'd had Frank imprinting on him like a baby bird. She'd expected him to be a mess when Frank finally imploded and had to be stopped. She'd been ready to hold him, wipe away the tears, handle all the practical work that it would take to get Frank's body stored and prepped for dissection back home so that Riff wouldn't have to.

But this…this she hadn't expected.

Frank had been on the floor, completely subdued, ready to be taken. Everything had gone as well as it could have done, given Frank's unusual strength in the face of his programming. And then that ridiculous human Brad had asked an even more ridiculous question and Riff had – what exactly?

Riff had gone crazy.

She'd seen him reach for the whip, but still hadn't expected the level of violence.

Frank was helpless, by all the gods! Could barely move his head and was crying like a little girl!

Magenta has no great love for Frank, because he is generally awful and a burden and a pain, but even she baulks at cruelty to helpless animals.

Riff has gone too far and she will have to report it this time. Her heart clenches. He's her brother, her sometime lover, she is closer to him than his own skin. But she can't overlook this. It'll be obvious when they dissect Frank, for starters. It'll be clear that the wounds were inflicted after the deactivation hormones had already flooded his body. No agent can be expected to fight back in that condition, even one as unusual as Frank.

No. It will be blindingly clear that Riff was beating Frank for fun, or revenge, or whatever-the-hell that was back in there, and that'll earn him immediate dismissal at best and immediate imprisonment at worst.

She enters the hallway and directs her best glare at the human in the wheelchair, who is still sat, immobile, staring in disbelieving horror at the spatters of blood on the floor. Magenta gives him a wry scowl. She feels just as disgusted as he does.

It had been horrendous, watching Riff lose it like that. The whip in his hand, flowing like an extension of his body, curling out in a perfect arc to snap a deep line of pain across Frank's back. The biker jacket had split, Frank arching up in shock. But he hadn't screamed. Crucial evidence. The deactivation was working perfectly after all. One of the first year tests for agent training was their ability to control cries of pain. Putting Frank back in neutral, effectively.

"What the fuck –" Magenta had snapped. And then it had got worse. Riff had pounced on Frank, wrestled the jacket down unwilling but unresisting arms, exposing the corset and the tattoos and the expanse of skin, and then leapt away again. To give himself room. A bullwhip is long. It needs windup.

The second blow had laid Frank's skin open. Frank had been knocked flat on his face with the force of it. Blood went everywhere.

Now the humans were yelling, Riff was frothing and raving like a rabid dog, the whip was cracking in horrible, moronic repetitiveness and Magenta was screaming over all of it that this had to _stop_ , that this vas fucking _crazy_ , Riff, are you _serious_ , he's _out_ , leave him _alone_ -

She eventually tackled him bodily, when he paused to draw back the whip again. Knocked him over with her bodyweight. He was slight, was Riff, and not steady on his feet in his rage. She landed with him wrapped in a full stranglehold, her cheek sticky with the blood on the floor, Riff swearing loudly and then – oh gods – starting to cry in her grip.

"I thought you liked him," she hissed in his ear, still trying to understand. "He liked you."

"He didn't like me!" Riff howled, but he wasn't fighting to be free of her. Frank had curled into a fetal ball on the floor and was ominously still. "He never liked me!"

It was hard to argue, because Frank, as well as being a carefully manufactured emotional cripple, had hardly been one for rampant demonstrations of affection, at least the ones that didn't involve sex. But to Magenta, who had been tag-teaming Frank's training and handling since very early on, knew that it was rare for an agent to be so stable throughout: that the training had gone incredibly smoothly. As if Frank, once past the initial trials of the process, had _wanted_ to be trained. And trained by Riff. He'd never bonded quite so completely with her, which to a certain extent had been expected. Training always worked better with one carer and one abuser – what the humans would call "good cop, bad cop". It had been Magenta's default role to act as abuser. And now it looked like her turn as the bad cop was over. Time to play nice.

She relaxed her grip only when it became clear that Riff wasn't going to go for the whip again, rolled off him, and got to her feet fluidly.

Zo. Practicalities. Get Frank out of here, they could inject him anytime. It hardly mattered now. Just get him out of Riff's sight so this – whatever it was – didn't happen again.

Get the male humans stowed. The tall one, Brad, had been already bending to Frank (who showed no sign of moving, though he certainly wasn't dead yet) and it wouldn't do to contaminate this situation further should Brad have any weird thoughts of revenge, This sort of thing tended to happen. Columbia was a case in point. Obsessed with Frank, that girl. Ob _sessed_. Would take a bullet for him. Best she stay in her room until all this was over and then she could be turned out like the rest of them.

So she'd dragged Riff to his feet (Vhat? He wasn't going to get away with just lying there and not helping, not with the massive problems he'd just caused) and shoved him in the direction of the humans with a curt "Deal with them. Now."

And he'd moved to do as she asked, his face quite blank and focused, almost like an agent himself.

Brad had surprised them both by fighting back immediately. He didn't want to be taken from Frank. Went for the whip himself, though it was obvious he didn't know how to use it. Riff didn't have too much trouble getting him under control. Humans were a pushover when you're used to having to wrestle a fully trained adult Transylvanian agent.

She had then studiously ignored any human-related shenanigans in favour of dealing with Frank.

Oh, boy. He was bleeding a lot. This was going to be messy.

"Come on," she'd muttered, hoping her voice would get through the pain he was evidently blocking. He should react. "Get up. Now. Up, Furter, up."

And he'd obediently got up. Slowly, jerkily, like a zombie or an automaton. But doing her bidding perfectly, just like he'd been trained to. More blood had started to drip, running down his legs and striping red transverse lines across the fishnets.

"Good boy. Come with me," Magenta had said, softly, calmly. Calm was the key. Don't frighten him anymore or he'll be at risk of losing even the most intrinsic programming and going completely feral after all. "That's right. Well done, Furter. Keep moving."

He'd limped meekly and slowly at her side the whole way to the room. Perfect little baby bird, his imprinting taking over again towards someone being nice to him, saying nice things about him when he was hurting. She guided him inside, and ordered him to hold out his hand for the cuff. He had done so with no hesitation, and sank to his knees on the mattress as she fastened it around the bed frame.

"Stay," she'd said. And now he looked frightened – she was leaving? She was the one who knew what to do. The one who was in control. The one who supposed to be looking after him. "It's all right," Magenta had said, feeling a twinge of easily-dismissed sympathy. "It'll be over soon."

She hadn't really thought about bringing the human female until after she'd closed the door on Frank, but then the memory of how quickly Frank had returned to a more stable state with the humans around him flashed up in her mind.

Shoving Janet in with him was a logical choice, in the end.


	10. Chapter 10

Riff Raff was so much stronger than he looked.

Brad is starting to think that whatever planet these people come from must really deal heavy on the malt extract and vitamins. And, he thinks grimly, pacing back and forth in his tiny prison (it's a bathroom, which at least means he's been able to relieve himself and wash his face, have a drink) they are also deeply into their crazy.

What has become of Janet?

It says something about Brad that he actually thinks of her first, rather than Frank, although the spectre of Frank's bleeding body looms heavily in his mind and will continue to do so, even long after this is all over. Once in a while, he'll even wake from deep sleep with the memory of Frank's defeated eyes burnt into the back of his brain.

He thinks: they'd better not try to hurt her. I'll kill them.

The anger is so pure it's almost alien to him, the same anger that had driven him to try and turn the whip on Frank's abusers. The injustice of it all. You don't hit someone who's vulnerable and you certainly don't hit someone who's not fighting back.

So he fights back and he gets hit and Riff's long spidery body is all over him, holding him tight, dragging him off, so he doesn't get to see what happens to Frank or Doctor Scott, and Janet is somewhere unknown, probably frightened, perhaps even in pain.

He needs to get to her. He needs to get to them all, get them out.

Like Janet, Brad comes to his realization at almost the same time: he has no more intention of leaving Frank behind (if Frank is even still alive) than he would have of leaving a kitten in a crocodile cage. His reaction to leap to the injured Frank's defense had been more primal than even he had expected. What this means for him in terms of emotional development, he'll have to find time to go through later. But not now.

Now, his own wrists and neck hurt, because Riff Raff was not gentle when handling him. The bathroom is small, tiled, and grubby. There's black mold on the wall above the bath and the toiletries look dusty, as if they've always only been for show.

An awful lot about this castle is like a charade, a gilded doll's house where all the food is plaster and all the furnishings are nylon instead of silk. There is no reality here. Just something created that looks like reality, a veneer over something vicious and dark. A trap. Even the homely, grubby surroundings of the bathroom start to seem sinister and claustrophobic. There is no window in the bathroom and no noise outside, now that Riff has gone.

Brad feels very alone and is starting to be afraid, now that there's nobody here that he has to be brave for except himself.

It's a feeling he doesn't like at all.

So he splashes a bit more water on his face and cleans his glasses, and then starts methodically slamming his shoulder against the door.

The pain actually helps give him focus. If he's not careful, he'll get to like it.

Riff Raff too is afraid (although if you were to see him, there he goes, like a glimmering golden shade in the darkened castle corridors, you'd never know) but his fear comes from somewhere less visceral than loneliness.

He has failed.

He has failed Frank, and worse, he has failed Magenta. Even if they go home now, he has ruined home for them. There will be prison, and explanations, and Riff feels like whipping Frank half to death has broken something inside him, something important he hadn't even known was there until it snapped.

He will never work as an agent handler again. He will probably never work again.

And the worst part is there's a capering, dark suspicion growing in his mind that this is what Frank wanted him to do. Frank wanted to destroy him. Well done, Furter. Well played. It may have killed you, but you knew you weren't getting out of here alive. You wanted to make sure I never worked another agent again, not after you. You jealous little bitch.

You glorious, jealous little bitch.

Sickly, Riff feels almost proud of Frank's presumed jealousy now. If Frank couldn't have Riff, no other agent would have Riff. Riff and Frank. Longest-serving agent and handler in Transylvanian history. Their legacy was assured now that the story was ending in tragedy. It's almost a rose-tinted little fantasy, and Riff plays it in his head as he makes sure that everything is in place for Frank's final ride on the needle in the lab. The birthing tank used for Rocky will do very well as Frank's final bed, until they can get him into storage. It will only make things worse if anything else happens to Frank's body after he's dead. The autopsy is going to be damning enough. No. From here on out, everything has to be by the book, and with Frank successfully subdued (Riff glosses over the details, as they're not going to help him be practical right now) by the book is looking like a much more achievable goal.

Riff goes back to the room to scoop up the human scientist, and finds that Magenta has already been there, because there's now only blood on the floor and Frank is gone.

Very sensible, his Magenta. Removing the problem in case things get worse.

Riff commandeers the handles of the chair and shoves the human out into the closet in the hall. There's really no need for anything bigger. It's not as if the earthling is going to get cramped, is it? If it fits the chair, it's fine. He shuts the door on the shouting and the thumping of fists and locks it.

Still he feels as if that old, hairy face in there looks familiar somehow, and is disquieted in the depths of his being. Perhaps with less hair? Maybe…

"Riff."

Magenta leans in the doorway. There is blood on her face, and her eyes are darkly furious, but she is outwardly calm. "Come," she says. "Ve make the report now. They must know that we are coming home. They vill be…"

She pauses for what seems an interminable amount of time, her expression unreadable, almost bored. Say it, Riff thinks, fatalistically. Say it.

"…disappointed."

Oh, thinks Riff Raff, wondering if this is what a breaking heart feels like. Is that all.

"Where's the m-"

Her look cuts him dead.

"Where's Furter," he corrects, dully. Nobody's master anymore. Soon to be no-one anymore. Serves him right, that manipulative, deviant little shit. Yes, anger helps. Hold onto that. Remember how many times he whipped you. Treated you like dirt. Almost got everyone killed.

"Secured," says Magenta. It's very hard to tell how she's feeling. Her professional mask is perfect. Riff hopes that her career isn't going to be over along with his. She's always been a consummate professional and she deserves better. Perhaps (and here comes that rose-tinted little fantasy again, gods bless it) perhaps she can support them both. They can be together. In a gesture of attempted reconciliation, he holds out his arms, raises them to her, willing her to meet him halfway, elbow to elbow.

For a moment, he thinks he has lost absolutely everything. Then he feels her cool, pale skin against him, sees the gleam of her golden uniform in the corner of his downcast eye as she moves close to him, pressing her arms to his. The relief is incredible. He knows he is not forgiven, but to not be cast out from her love will sustain him through almost anything.

They rest their foreheads together, briefly. Then Magenta turns her head, frowning.

"Vhat was that noise?"

"I put the human in the cupboard."

"Not zhat."

The noise comes again, louder. Somewhere in the depths of the house.

"Somevun is moving about," Magenta says.

"But they're all locked in."

There is a crash, unmistakeable sound of destruction, and Magenta's dark lips curve down in an angry scowl.

"Not any more," she growls.


	11. Chapter 11

As it happens, being locked in is starting to become a very endangered state of affairs in the Transylvanian household, had Magenta and Riff only known it.

It starts with lube, as a lot of things in Frank's mansion often have over the years.

Janet, keeping eye contact with Frank the whole time because she suspects that his tenuous calm depends upon it, gently but rapidly works the whole contents of the bottle of oil over his cuffed wrist.

She needs to make sure he stays as calm as possible, because this is in all likelihood going to hurt – she's read about this sort of thing in the small stash of lurid crime paperbacks she keeps hidden in her underwear drawer, but never in a million years thought she'd have to put it into practice.

The cuff isn't that small. There's room to get her fingers under it, work the grease around Frank's skin. Surely there's room to make this happen.

She gives him a reassuring smile as she does this. His lips twitch at the corners, mirroring her. He is very attentive to her now, watching her every move like a bright child in class attending to a favourite teacher. It's a bit unnerving. To Riff Raff it would have been familiar, nostalgic – and very, very worrying at the same time. Because it's the attentiveness an agent in the first endorphin-happy rush of imprinting gives to his handler.

"There," she says, at last, when she thinks she's done pretty much all she can to lubricate the cuff. "Now. You're ready?"

He bites his lip.

"Come on. You can do it. I know your back hurts, sweetie, but we need to get out of here."

Frank regards her with an odd expression: a mix of fear and determination that she's never seen on him before. Were Brad here, he would have recognized it. It's the same sort of look Frank was wearing when menacing Dr Scott in the hall.

"Tell me," he says, after a pause so long she was starting to think he'd just glazed out. The words seem to come with difficulty, as if he's pushing past some strange reluctance. If she's being honest, she wasn't sure he could still speak at all. "Tell me what to do."

The old Janet would have probably flushed and stammered. She would not have known what to do, confronted with a semi-naked man in makeup and suspenders who was asking her to give him a direct order. She would probably have waited until Brad came to sort things out.

New Janet makes sure she's got her robe securely fastened, gives Frank a couple of confident pats on the arm and says, very sweetly and prettily in her most Sandra Dee manner, "Whip your hand out of that cuff and kick the door down, Frankie. _Right now."_

She still has enough of the old Janet left in her to wince and look away as he does as she asks, and loses a layer of skin in the process. She almost screams, but he doesn't. The cuffs rattle emptily against the bed.

The door barely offers resistance as a calf-length peep-toe stiletto violates it from within. It smacks onto the floor and splinters along the line of the ruined hinges.

Janet pokes her head out, Frank hanging back at her side.

For a moment, all is empty, and quiet. Then there's a flicker of gold and movement in Janet's peripheral vision, and with her head still full of those glitzy outfits that Riff and Magenta were wearing, she turns with a little shriek already bubbling from her throat.

It's not those two, though. It's a girl. A red-headed girl wearing glitter and sequin hot pants and a lot of makeup, and she gives a full-throated, earsplitting soprano scream as Frank lunges forward with a defensive growl.

"It's okay, it's okay!" Janet gasps, grabbing Frank's arm. "She's not going to hurt us. She's not. Going. To hurt us." She turns a look full of steel and fury on the girl, who has stuffed her own fist into her mouth and is hyperventilating around it. Her terrified eyes are fixed on the scowling, straining figure of Frank N Furter who is clearly one restraining grip away from tearing her apart in Janet's defense. "Are you?" Janet challenges.

The girl shakes her head frantically, eyes darting between Janet and her guard dog. "I ain't gonna hurt anybody, I swear! Oh Jesus. I just wanna get out of here. Please get me out of here. I'll never do anything like this again." Her voice is incredibly shrill, and evidently on the edge of tears. She dissolves in front of them, sobbing, and even Frank stands down a little from his aggressive stance. Clearly, there's no threat here.

It dawns on Janet that this is the girl from the party –

"Columbia?"

\- the one who had done the tapdance. She had been all over Frank like a rash, thinks Janet with entirely unjustified sniffiness, right up until the point where that biker had been…

No. Don't think about that now. Janet pats Frank and shushes him until he subsides into his now habitual attentiveness at her side. After it becomes obvious that Columbia is going to need the same treatment or she's going to give them all away with her squalling, she gives the girl a quick hug. Somehow she knows, just by that proximity (the scent. The feel of skin) that Columbia is human. Just like her.

"They locked me in my room," Columbia says, hiccupping a bit with her tears as Janet releases her. Janet doesn't need to ask who 'they' are.

"Us too," she says. "Chained Frank up. How did you get out?"

"They think I'm so stupid," says Columbia, viciousness replacing her misery. "Just cos I'm not special an' alien an' a genius, like them. Well, I'm not stupid. I know stuff about this place. Passages. Doors." She glares at Frank, who doesn't cower, but shifts his weight so he's closer to Janet. Columbia frowns. "What's up with you? Don't pretend you're not listening to me, you sassy son-of-a-bitch. I'm gonna say a few things to you."

"Not now," Janet says, because Frank's head has snapped up alertly, and before Columbia can say anything else, she grabs the girl's hand and drags her along the corridor. Frank moves swiftly with them, his heels clicking on the floor. He has heard the sounds of movement from somewhere else in the house. If they're to have any chance of getting away, Janet reasons, they have to go now. They're certainly not going to have any chance of sneaking away with all these sequins and Frank's shoes. Are they?

It turns out that it isn't Janet who has to worry about being imminently recaptured – it's Brad, who managed to break down his door a few moments after Frank kicked in the one from the bedroom. To Brad, the castle is alive with movement and noise. He can hear thumping and hammering and wheel-skidding, sounding like someone trying to ram a baby stroller into a cupboard that's too small for it. He can hear a girl screaming, somewhere a little further away, a scream that rivals a vixen for sheer shrill volume. Then the screaming stops and there's only the damning sound of what he's sure is Riff Raff's determined tread, moving closer. Noise carries oddly in this place. He's not at all sure where it's all coming from.

So he chooses a direction at random (all the corridors are dark and look the same in the greyness) and starts to run, inwardly berating himself for having no shoes and for not having bothered to put trousers back on before following Riff Raff to answer the door. And he chooses poorly. On his second turn, he almost smacks right into the butler, as if they'd been looking for each other in some corny romantic movie, and Riff immediately lunges at him with a manic, rictus snarl. Brad makes a defensive parry, manages against all odds to catch Riff in the eye with his elbow, and as Riff's head lurches back, Brad turns to run. He's aware in a very minor fashion of hearing yet another splintering crash as he does so, and the thumping and wheel-skidding noises stop, but he doesn't have time or space in his head to analyze this. He keeps moving.

The girl that was screaming wasn't Janet. But he's pretty sure it wasn't Magenta either, so he's going to try and find the girl and work from there. As plans go, it isn't brilliant, but it's all he has and so, holding onto it with all the resilience he has left, Brad runs.

Magenta finds her brother looking exceptionally put out, a few doors away from where he'd stashed the human male. She doesn't say anything immediately. Her pursed lips say it all.

"The human has escaped," Riff says, after a moment. His voice is even and focused. One of his eyes looks a little red.

"Both ze males are out," Magenta confirms. "The one vith vheels too."

After Riff Raff had taken off to investigate the noise, she'd been intending to check up on Columbia, but had almost been run down by Dr Scott in his chair as he came rocketing out of the closet, the door swinging drunkenly on a broken hinge behind him. Magenta hadn't bothered to go after him. He represents a very minor threat in the grand scheme of things, because really, truly and honestly, none of this is good. This situation feels as if it's escalating far too quickly into the bad kind of chaos. There's really only one thing that could make things worse, and a short while later, as she stands silently with her brother in the doorway of the bedroom, looking at the bloodstained handcuffs winking emptily from the bedframe, it's clear that it's already happened.

Riff Raff grinds his teeth.

"Activate the automated security system," he hisses at her, and Magenta moves to comply. "Level two only. We can't risk them damaging Furter."

The unspoken "…any more than he is already" hangs in the air as Magenta flips down a section of wooden paneling in the corridor to reveal the console beneath. They haven't ever used the security feature except for that one winter years ago when Frank became suddenly, unexpectedly and dangerously bored and they'd needed something to distract him for a few hours while they tried to arrange another party. Magenta hopes it still works. She'd thought at the time it was an extravagant nonsense – who needs security when you've got an agent on board? – but she'd been grateful for it that winter and she's grateful for it again now.

The lights flash reassuringly, and she can hear the clicks of hidden panels opening on every level of the castle. "System activated," she confirms, and Riff Raff smirks, trying to retain his confidence, but his eyes are darting and Magenta, who knows him best, knows that he is frightened. The evidence of just how much of a botch job this mission has become just carries on mounting up.

"Come," she says to him, because this isn't over and she has to make sure he doesn't give in entirely. There has to still be hope. "Ve'll get Columbia. Collect zhem all in the lab. Finish zhis."

Janet is trying not to give up hope herself. Oh. Oh, everywhere in this castle looks so unfamiliar, so confusing. How can she be sure they'll find a way out? Like Brad, she's also wishing she'd got some proper clothes. Even Frank and Columbia look more assured in their skimpy pornographic costumes than Janet feels in her borrowed robe and bare feet. Columbia is reluctantly in the lead, taking them fearfully down dark corridors and through parlours and other places that look like half ghost train and half science fiction, with Frank bringing up the rear and looking about himself alertly like a pointer dog at a shoot.

It's amazing the change in him, really. A little (OK, a lot of) sex, and a couple of direct orders, and he's ignoring his horrible wounds and evident psychological damage in favour of behaving like some kind of specialist soldier – an action transvestite, if you will. Janet is not stupid. She has no doubt that this is probably just evidence of far greater psychological problems, but right now, if Frank being in this state is going to get them all home free, she's willing to take it. And pay for his therapy later. She hears shock treatment is quite safe and effective these days.

She still can't quite stop the gasp when he taps her on the shoulder. He shakes his head warningly, points back the way they've come, and then sneaks ( _how? He's wearing six inch heels on a wooden floor!_ screams Janet's brain) away into the shadows.

Evidently they're being followed. Columbia grabs Janet's arm and they both lock still, trying not to breathe, trying to hear whatever it is Frank obviously heard.

Then there's a very quickly stifled shout, a brief scuffle, and Janet's having flashbacks all over again because once again here's Frank coming into view, his powerful arm wrapped around Brad's neck in a choke-hold, Brad struggling and panicked and unable to get a sound out other than the occasional wheeze. He's flailing his hands and going purple, but he's _alive_ and that means more than anything in the world.

"Brad!" Janet cries, her relief immense. Then: "Oh my god. _Frank_! Drop him! Right now!"

Frank's arms fall back. Brad staggers forward, gasping, and Janet catches him, holds him, rests her head against his shoulder, revels in that brief feeling of normality. Brad hugs her back, and, after a pause to regain his equilibrium, he straightens, turns, and rather stiffly draws Frank into the hug as well. Frank blinks and tenses up, but does not move away. His eyes close slowly, sharing the closeness, the relief. The three of them stay there like that for a precious, hung moment. Then Columbia screams. There's a mechanical whine, an electrical hum, and the slam of opening hidden doors.

And all of a sudden, before anyone really has any time to do anything sensible about it, there's androids fighting Brad and Janet.


	12. Chapter 12

For a moment, Janet thinks Frank has abandoned them.

She's tougher than she looks, is Janet: as evidenced by her recent stalwart behavior in escaping the room and her (albeit unwitting) assumption of control over the brainwashed and beaten Frank. Still, the fact that she can think at all while attempting to keep the grinding pincers of a seven foot automaton away from her fragile, squashable human body is nothing short of admirable.

Columbia's screams are relentless. Gosh, hasn't she got some lungs on her? She keeps it up, screeching like a teakettle boiling dry, even as she pinballs around the restricted corridor space, trying to keep herself out of the robot's clutches. Brad is doing his best, putting his head down like the footballer he will never quite be, shoving into the things with his shoulder, trying to match his muscle with their metal.

It's quite obvious after only brief seconds that they're going to be overcome. There are four robots, and only three humans –

This is the moment that Janet realizes Frank is nowhere to be seen. No alien in the mix. Where did he go? There's so much motion and confusion she hadn't even noticed him leave.

Even as the nearest robot snatches her around the waist and starts to lift her up, Janet is able to nurse a pang of disappointment in Frank for his fickle cowardice. He'd been so loyal for the duration of the escape. She sees Brad stagger, unable to shove the android back. Columbia is already being slung (still wailing like an air raid siren) over one broad metal shoulder. Everywhere a mass of lurching metal limbs, the smell of oil and rust, the whirr of gears deafening.

Then she hears it.

"Haiiiiiiiii-yaaa!"

 _Clang._

The android holding Janet jolts and shudders, its massive metal frame vibrating. A few sparks fly up in the corner of Janet's vision, and the smell of oil becomes the smell of oil burning. Acrid smoke starts to fill the air.

There's another _clang_ , and a screech of rent metal. The android makes a squalling mechanical noise, tries to turn. It drops Janet unceremoniously, leaving her to stare directly through its legs – and directly at another pair of legs.

But these legs are wearing ripped, bloodstained fishnets and beautiful Italian leather calf-length peep-toe boots.

Silly Janet, judging Frank so prematurely. It's not as if he's unpredictable or insane or anything.

She sees very shortly afterwards that he is holding an axe. It flashes into view for brief seconds as he draws back to take another swing, then there's another wrenching groan of metal being torn and the robot standing above Janet topples forward – thank goodness, had it gone backward it would certainly have crushed her – to lie prone and twitching. Frank pounces on its back with a clatter of reinforced heels on metal, roars delightedly like an operatic tiger, and proceeds to smash the ever-living shit out of the thing's innards with the axe. His expression is feral and joyful and Janet is reminded of the fact that she really ought to spend a bit less time feeling sorry for Frank and a bit more time being at least a little scared of him.

Time to take control.

"Frank!" she cries, and her voice cracks in the oily smoke. She chokes, coughs. That does it. Frank is at her side in seconds, axe slung over his shoulder like a super-manly lumberjack - and doesn't that look weird given the spangly corset? - , his other hand reaching out to raise her to her feet. His expression has drifted back towards fearful, because she's in charge. Who will tell him what to do if she is harmed? So Janet only allows herself a brief second of clinging to him, feeling his reassuring (and horrifying) inhuman strength, before patting his arm to indicate she is okay. There are smears of black grease across his face, marring the makeup like tears.

"Kill the robots, Frank," she whispers. And he grins, all those white teeth bared in the predator's smile, and turns away, the axe coming up.

Brad is more startled than Janet when the android he's wrestling unsuccessfully with suddenly starts to shudder and smoke like a car engine on race day, and then he catches sight of a grinning Frank over the thing's raised arm. Ah. That'd explain it.

Like Janet, Brad's very aware that if ever he was going to be afraid of Frank, now would be the ideal time. Thank god he's on _their_ side. The man looks even more manic than usual, and displays far too much relish in ripping the android a new battery hole with that obviously well-used axe. Still, Brad's grateful to be rescued, and in at least a very small way, pleased to see Frank looking more like his old self. The vulnerable, broken creature he'd left cowering from Riff Raff's whip hadn't felt right at all. That wasn't what Frank was. That wasn't how he was meant to be.

Although (and Brad wouldn't have been Brad if he hadn't thought this) if this was what Frank was meant to be, he was going to have a hard time finding a suitable job if they ever did get out of here alive.

I mean, it's not as if the army would even take him, given his…clothing preferences.

Frank snarls, because another android has just grabbed his axe at the top of its swing. Frank doesn't like people touching his stuff. At all. As Riff is well aware, once Frank decides something is his, he goes mental if someone else starts messing with it.

 _My_ axe. _My_ humans.

Brad and Janet stare in genuine, open-mouthed horror as Frank twists his body improbably, shifting the balance of weight with the axe as a fulcrum. Then he seems to contract, pulling all his muscle mass and weight sharply inwards and downwards. The android, stubbornly refusing to let go of the axe and seemingly blind to the danger, is lifted off its feet and flung over Frank's head, smashing into the wall behind. And partially through it. Frank flicks upright with the deceptively casual body-snap of a trained (killer) dancer, sweeping the axe in a wide straight-armed arc to give him momentum, then charges full-tilt after the robot currently retreating down the corridor with Columbia.

Brad's expression as he meets Janet's eyes says it all. Those goddamn things must weigh as much as a small car. So tell me, Janet, baby – are you rescuing him or is he rescuing you? Because people who can blithely chuck around half a ton of metal and can sprint in six-inch heels shouldn't need to be rescued. Frank's deep, crazy laughter blends with Columbia's screams and the sound of mechanical dismemberment. The android carrying her had made it around a fork in the corridor, and the resulting carnage is lost to Brad and Janet's view. But they can hear it.

After a moment, things go mostly quiet, and Columbia runs back towards them, sobbing. She is covered in soot and grease and her wrists look sore from being grabbed by metal pincers, but she's otherwise intact. Brad catches her, pulls her in, and they stand there in a huddle, all humans together, breathing raggedly like a cluster of little rabbits in a ruined burrow.

There's an echoing _clank_ , and a dragging sound, then Frank appears around the corner. He looks tired. He's pulling the axe along the floor behind him by the haft, and his back wounds have re-opened, bleeding sluggishly once again. In his other hand he's holding the battered remains of the android's head, which he presents silently to Janet like the spoils of war. It takes Brad nudging her to get Janet to snap out of it enough to take it from him.

"Th-thank you, Frankie." Another nudge. "Good job. Good boy!"

For a moment Brad thinks Frank's going to react poorly to being addressed like a puppy, but it seems Frank's just about had it for now. Having delivered proof of having carried out his orders, he retreats to just behind Janet's shoulder and stands, still vibrating a bit with the remains of the adrenaline. Brad risks giving him a congratulatory slap on an un-wounded bit of arm and gets the faintest of fearful smiles in return.

"That won't be all of them," Columbia manages. She keeps darting looks at Frank, as if she can't make up her mind whether to kiss him or kick his ass. "We have to go."

"Right," Janet agrees, trying to decide what to do with her grisly robot trophy. She eventually settles for putting it down next to a pretty floral vase on a miraculously undamaged side table. "Right. Which way?"

But Frank's already looking up, alert despite his weariness, and jerks his head to indicate that the sound of big metal feet they can all now hear is coming from behind them.

"Away from that," Janet decides, and they all get moving. It's perhaps forgivable under the circumstances that none of them pay greater attention to the tiny, whirring motion of the camera mounted on the stairs as it turns to follow them.

Riff Raff is trying very hard not to panic, now. Not for himself, you understand. For her. For Magenta. His hands grip the edge of the screen until his knuckles almost pop through the skin. They'd stopped off at the lab to check in on Columbia through the monitor, and had found an empty room, and then, once Riff started to cycle through the cameras, something else.

That – whatever that was, it wasn't normal. It was barely even possible. Frank was deactivated. He should only be good for crying in a corner or possibly doing the laundry. Deactivated agents follow simple orders and are incredibly easy to intimidate. Taking down the security androids with an axe? And laughing?

Riff is starting to think – and by all the gods he should have seen it coming – that Frank is a completely different breed of agent. Where had he even got the axe from, anyway? Riff knows that the one used to such deadly effect on that delivery boy has been carefully locked away in the drawing room along with all the other things like guns, knives, lead piping. And Riff has the only key in his pocket. Has Frank been stashing axes around the place in hidden caches like some kind of demented, Machiavellian hamster?

After everything else that's been going on today, he wouldn't put it past him.

"It's the girl," Magenta says, from behind him. He should have known she would have been watching too. Cunning little minx, she is, even though he'd tried to distract her. "Didn't you see it? The female. He's following her, taking his direction from her. She must have re-imprinted him, the lucky little bitch."

"Not possible."

"Not possible. Vhat vould you prefer, darling, that he's a fucking mutant?" Magenta is being deliberately harsh, her voice mocking. When Riff doesn't respond, she taps her nails on the screen's edge. Practical to a fault. "Ve get the girl, ve get him."

Ah, yes, my love, Riff thinks sadly. But it's you who needs to have succeeded here. What happens to me is barely relevant anymore. After this, even if I try to delete the footage, they'll find it. They'll know.

Frank's killed me just as surely as if he'd used that axe on my head.

As he follows Magenta from the lab, he sees the images of the still-smoldering robots on the monitor and, very briefly, wishes himself one of them.


	13. Chapter 13

Columbia has lead them into somewhere that smells very heavily of sandalwood and marijuana: it's also unusually warm and feels more lived-in than the rest of the house. It's isolated, dark and quiet, with the faintest of twingly sitar music bleeding gently out of the walls. Pursued at every turn by the clanking sounds of killer robots from outer space, it's unusual now to find themselves somewhere that seems insulated from danger. Almost safe, though Janet isn't sure whether she's ever going to feel properly safe again after this. They're all tired, achey and scared and they can't run much longer.

Brad shuts the door behind them (it closes with a gentle click instead of the creaking slam of most of the doors), locks it, and puts his back against it. Somewhere against the far wall, Columbia is lighting a candle. The space fills with a gentle golden light, and Janet looks around herself in surprise.

This is a nice room. It is hung with drapery, and there is soft carpet on the floor, scattered with heaps of large, florid cushions. The smell of sandalwood is coming from bowls of incense standing crystalline on the mantel.

"The Zen Room," says Columbia, quietly. "It's where you get put if you're…upset. Isn't it, Frankie?"

Frank, who has made his way silently to a cushion pile and flopped down on it like an exhausted dog, looks up at his name. "Yes," he says, and he sounds different. His voice works again, more fluid, more like his old self. "I like it here. It's comfortable." He frowns very slightly, and Janet sits down next to him on the cushions, which seems to clarify things for him. "I'm supposed to like it here, anyway. Do I like it here?"

"Yes," Janet reassures, and pats his hand. He seems to be calmer with people touching him, she's noticed. "Get some rest. Columbia, we can't stay here, they'll find us."

"Oh, we're not stayin' here," Columbia says, vehemently. "There's a way out in this room. I know there is. See, this is where unwelcome guests get put. Like cops and health and safety folks. They come directly to here from the outside. I've seen it happen."

Something about the girl's tone makes Janet's heart sink.

"You know it's in here, but you don't know where exactly. Right?"

Columbia looks guilty. She nods.

There's a flare of another match: Frank is lighting a cigarette that Brad, watching him from the doorway, strongly suspects does not contain regular tobacco. Once upon a time he would have been reacting in moral disgust. He finds he no longer cares, nor is he disposed to wonder where the cigarette came from. Frank can get high, get laid or get crazy, as long as they get out of here. He tries not to get distracted by the sight of those red lips sucking on the cigarette.

"Well, we'd better get looking," he says, clapping his hands together in an attempt to be decisive. Frank hums a nervy laugh, breathing out smoke. He's shaking again, a little, and his wrist is more obviously raw in the golden light. He stays where he is, obeying Janet's instruction to get some rest, while the others all start to circle the room. They feel the walls with their hands. Press books on the bookshelves, pull some out. No secret doors open. Janet's on the floor, fingers running along the skirting boards, trying to feel some breath of air that might indicate a path to freedom.

Nothing.

Frank smokes his way through his first joint, rolls another, lights up. He's stopped shaking now. As Riff could easily have told them, medicating Frank is the next best thing to fucking him for levelling him out when he's in a low-level disturbed state. Columbia is still searching, although now she's crying quietly as she does so, because if they're trapped here she's trapped them, and she can't bear the idea that she may have doomed them all.

"Nothing," says Brad, from his place searching behind some of the big silk drapes. "Just more wall." And some incredibly pornographic silk-screen prints, he doesn't add, dropping the drapery back over them with a cough.

"Don't you think it's odd?" Janet whispers. "We haven't heard any of those robots the whole time we've been looking. It's so quiet."

"Too quiet," agrees Frank, and giggles. They all turn to look at him, suspiciously. Frank raises his shoulders and widens his eyes in an _oh-now-what-darlings_ shrug. Columbia sniffs, wipes her face on her arm, then proceeds to take the joint from him and smoke it herself. He doesn't protest, just pouts then blows her a kiss. Evidently the hash is for sharing.

Brad and Janet sit down in the cushion pile, simultaneously, and Janet breathes out a sigh.

"I suppose they'll come for us," she says. "Will they kill us? Oh, Brad. If only we were among friends. Or sane persons."

"They're aliens," says Brad, putting his arm around her. "Maybe they'll just…I don't know. Send us to another planet."

"Another planet?" Janet echoes, horrified. From everything she's seen of Frank, Riff and Magenta's species so far, she doesn't think going to their home planet would be a picnic. At all.

There's a low chuckle from Frank.

"Planet, schmanet, Janet," he drawls. "Your first guess was far more accurate, love."

"He's right," says Columbia, offering the cigarette to Janet, who automatically starts to wave it away with an expression of polite terror, then catches sight of Frank's dark, knowing eyes on her and takes it, shoves it in her mouth, and takes a long drag. What the hell, right? They're dead anyway. Columbia is hugging herself, pacing a little. "You don't know these guys like I do. They'd kill you soon as look at you. And he's the worst of them." She points at Frank, who blinks. "What's he even doin' here, anyway? Ya know, thanks for the rescue and all, Frankie, but –"

"He's being rescued too," Brad and Janet say, firmly, in chorus. They look at each other in surprise, then, and laugh. Frank stares at them as if they've both gone quite mad, then they both start speaking over each other as if the words are moving too slowly for the synchronicity of their thoughts.

"Brad, you mean that –"

"Well, gosh, Janet, we can't just _leave_ him here – "

"But I thought that you –"

" _I_ thought that _you_ –"

Frank shuts them both up by hurling himself at them and clinging to them desperately. He's babbling, incomprehensible at first.

"Thank you," he is saying. "Thank you, I. I. I worked. It took me years. Years. And then, and then, an accident! An accident. Accidentally, Eddie, Dr Scott, and then I knew, I knew, I knew –"

Brad surprises them all by grabbing Frank's face and kissing him to make the hysteria stop. Frank stares at him as he pulls back.

"I knew you'd come," he whispers, and rubs his face against both of them like a cat, pressing lipstick to both their cheeks.

"Cute," says Columbia, who has the remains of Frank's joint clamped between her teeth, and sounds about as chirpy as a sick bird about the whole situation. "Really cute. But none of us are _bein'_ rescued or _gettin'_ rescued unless we can find the way out of here."

Nobody can argue with that. Janet curls her fingers into Frank's and holds on, mutely, and Brad rests his arm around both their shoulders, but they're still no closer to escaping: although tactile contact may be a key developmental need for human children, as a tool for getting three frightened adult humans and an alien to walk through walls, it's sadly lacking. And the sounds of the approaching robots are no longer distant. Even in the peace of the Zen Room, it's clear that the door will imminently be under attack.

Everyone starts inching away from the door, even before the first thud of a heavy metal fist. Everyone except Frank, who pushes away from both Brad and Janet, his ridiculous curls almost visibly bristling like hackles. He's ready to fight, despite the fact that he's evidently almost at the end of his rope. Janet almost starts forward to pull him back, but it's Brad who stops her, shaking his head. Debilitated or not, Frank's their best chance at surviving the longest once the robots break down the door. His manicured hands curl into fists. No axe here, the last one having been abandoned in the corridors outside when the blade fell off the splintered handle.

There's another thump, and Janet clings a little tighter to Brad. Columbia, her hands clasped to her chest, huddles against the far wall and tries not to wail in horror.

So she's the one who falls through the resulting gap and lands, squalling, on the blanketed lap of the newcomer when the hidden door in the far wall abruptly, silently and unexpectedly opens.

"Doctor Scott!" exclaims Frank, whose reactions are quicker than anyone else's.

"Frank N Furter?"

"Janet?"

"Doctor Scott!"

"Brad?"

"Doctor Scott!"

There's a creaking thud as multiple robot fists hit the main door, and the byplay is interrupted (thank goodness, because these things can so easily get silly, can't they?). Frank turns again and drops into defensive, fists raised, face grim.

"How did you find us?" Janet cries, rushing to her old mentor's side.

"How did you find the _door_?" Columbia adds, getting off Dr Scott's knees in as decorous a manner as is possible when one is wearing sequin short-shorts. "We looked everywhere."

"I was outside," says the bemused doctor, staring at Columbia with unabashed curiosity. "I meant to go for help. They didn't stop me. But as I was heading around the corner of the building, I felt this great force pulling on me, and it was as if the ground swallowed me up. Then I was moving down a great, dark shaft, and ended up stopping against the wall. It must have had some kind of a pressure plate on it, because once I touched it –"

" – it opened." Columbia snorts, utterly unladylike, through her teeth. "Huh, maybe I'm stupid after all. There is a way out in here. But it only opens from the _outside_."

They all, with the exception of Frank (whose attention is fully on the battering the main door is taking, and quite right too), have their eyes inexorably drawn to the place where Dr Scott's wheels are lodged firmly across the open doorway. The door is not going to close anytime soon. It can't.

They have an escape route, and not a moment too soon.

"Come on," Columbia says, and without a thought for her state of dress, scales Dr Scott and his chair like they're both a singularly difficult garden fence. Dr Scott, bug-eyed, gets an extremely close introduction to his new companion. Brad, wincing, red-faced and apologetic, does the same, trying to hold his unfortunately gaping robe closed as he scrambles over.

"Frank," Janet calls. The alien now has his back braced against the door, his legs locked as he pushes back against the pressure from outside as the robots step up their assault. His expression is eloquent, sweat standing out on his brow. "Frank, we have to go."

He shakes his head, a single tear leaking out and running down his cheek.

"Will kill you," he says, and his whole body jolts as the door shakes with the impacts. "You need to go. There'll be time."

"Frank," Janet says, seriously. "I'm telling you. We are all getting out of here." Then, because she still feels awkward about her unwanted power over him, she adds: "Help me over? Please?"

Frank closes his eyes, briefly, a flutter of shimmering peacock blues and greens and mascara. When he looks up, his pupils are wide and dark and full of all the focus he needs. He directs that focus at Dr Scott, who flinches.

"Head down," he growls.

And Dr Scott has a full three seconds to bend at the waist, flatten himself over his knees, before Frank pushes off the door. He stands for one of those seconds, as the robots crash in, hands on hips, sneer on lips, and addresses them –

"Do. Your. Worst."

\- then turns, snatches Janet up in his arms and hurls himself over into the darkness beyond the hidden door. His heels just clip Dr Scott's greying head as he leaps, leaving shards of glitter behind in the hair. Brad, crouching behind the wheelchair, yanks backward as soon as he hears Frank land on the other side.

The door closes efficiently as soon as it is freed from the blocking wheels. It's a good thing the robots don't have the ability to be frustrated. They probably won't find the gentle sitar music very calming.

The rest of the journey up the shaft to the outside is a blur. It's very dark, and Frank leads, Janet still gripped to him, his eyes like a cat's able to catch even the slightest hint of light. Brad, pushing the wheelchair, is next, and Columbia at the tail. When Frank puts his shoulder against the exterior door and shoves it open, they all step out blinking, as if blinded, even though it's raining cats and dogs and the sky is almost black with the ferocity of the storm. Janet, in Frank's arms, turns her head against his chest to shield herself from the driving water.

"How sentimental," drawls a voice, from directly in front of them, and Janet feels every muscle in Frank's body shudder.

The flash of lightning is beautifully timed, and lights up the white stripe in Magenta's hair and the bared skeleton grin of Riff Raff's teeth perfectly.


	14. Chapter 14

_**WARNING: CHARACTER DEATH.**_

 _ **Y'all knew it was coming. X edited thanks to lovely Cascaper picking up my Bad Proofreading Skillz. Mmhm. 3**_

* * *

All Riff can think in that first moment (and yes, he does hate himself for it) is how admirable Frank looks. I mean, really. There he stands. Formally deactivated. Beaten and crazy and whipped into total submission. Should by all accounts and in all sense be a cowering, gibbering vegetable.

And yet.

He's holding that female close to him, he's dripping with water, but his eyes…his eyes are just as fierce as they were when he was twenty years younger, at the start of his training, and still full of resentment for his handlers. He's got the devil's eyes. That's why Riff's grinning right now, not that he means to. Those were the good days. Frank was full of fire and there was such potential in him. Looking at him here now, in the rain, he is still the best agent Transylvania ever produced and it's still all down to Riff and Magenta.

And yet.

Magenta has the laser. She raises it, points it at Frank. Riff imagines he can hear Frank's sub-vocal growl in response, that bone-level sound that has been part of Riff's life since Magenta first disciplined Frank and Riff held him down. Oh, he has no doubt that Frank's frightened. He can see it in the man's entire posture, from the rigidity of his limbs to the bowed arch of his neck. The conditioning to the uniforms runs deep and twenty years of brainwashing doesn't go away in a few hours. But hadn't he always said that Frank's personal protective streak was on a planetary scale? Now all of it was attached to these earthlings. And, by association, to this planet.

Far too attached, Riff had thought earlier, and once again he has enough insight to berate himself, just a little, for not doing something sooner. What an idiot I have been, indeed. Almost as soon as he had got here, Frank had never wanted to go home to their planet, the planet he'd been born, raised and trained on. His home was _here._ He believed and wanted this enough to fight his own highly intelligent, highly conditioned brain over it. Nobody, but nobody, could stand in Frank's way when he decided he wanted something. Except possibly Frank himself. It would have to have been the hardest thing Frank had ever done, and Frank had slept with the hygienically-challenged Ozkar B Zek.

And yet.

Oh.

Oh dark gods, Riff thinks, suddenly appalled at his own stupidity. What have we done? What are we doing? We've got it all wrong. We've always had it all wrong. Think, moron, think. And quickly.

"You," Magenta calls out, and the next thunderclap punctuates her words. "Janet, isn't it?"

The female looks up from where she is huddled against Frank's chest, her eyes huge with surprise and terror. "Yes, darlink, you. Tell Furter to put you down. Then he comes to us. There's no need to kill all of you. You and your…friends can all go." She pauses, flicks a bored look from under her long lashes at Columbia. "Yes, you too. If you vant. I don't care. Nobody will believe anyzing you say, anyvay."

Columbia makes a choking sound.

"Do it," Magenta says, and smiles. "Come on, Furter. Listen to your mistress. She'll tell you vhat to do." Janet feels Frank twitch, as he responds to the familiar handler's voice. But he doesn't do anything.

"I thought you were better'n him," says Columbia to Magenta, in a subdued squeak. Magenta's only answer is to roll her eyes. They're all getting soaked, the rain relentless on them. Even Magenta's bouffant beehive is staring to sag under the weight of water. "Or I thought, ya know, maybe you cared. A little. Enough."

It's at this moment that Riff feverishly starts to work in earnest on an Idea. Not just an idea. An Idea. Possibly even an IDEA, if he has enough time to work out the details before Magenta decides to shoot everyone. It has to be right. He has to be sure. Because it could mean everything for her, and she is everything to him. And it could, just could, save his own skin as well.

"Frank," says Janet, in a dark, level voice that Brad doesn't recognize at all, "don't you dare put me down. Stay with me. Hold me tight."

"I mean," says Columbia, and her voice is getting (how is this possible) shriller as she gets angrier, "I knew you were a bitch, but really, truly, I thought you were my kinda bitch. But my god. You just take, take, take."

"Columbia," Janet hisses, warningly.

"No, I got this. I get it now. I get that you don't give a crap about what happens to me. And I get that you wanna take _him_." Her outflung arm takes in Frank. "And for some reason you don't wanna shoot him up to get him. So you know what?"

And tiny, petite Columbia takes up stance in front of Frank, who is towering in his heels and growling like a Rottweiler in a bear pit, and she folds her arms, chews her lip, defiant.

"You don't get him unless you go through me."

The growling abruptly stops. Janet feels more than hears Frank gulp at the girl's words. Oh no, no, no, she thinks. Please don't cry now. We need you. Don't break. Just a little longer. Be the Frank they trained you to be, just for a little while more.

"And me," says Brad, stepping away from the wheelchair to stand flanking Frank, and Janet almost starts to cry herself. Oh Brad. Always the hero.

"Fine," Magenta sniffs, and adjusts her grip on the laser.

Riff almost manages to grab her wrist in time.

Almost. His lunge pulls her aim off balance, and instead of piercing the defiantly heaving corseted bosom of Columbia, the white-hot arrows of light go awry. They slam into Dr Scott instead, knocking him out of his chair and throwing him to the floor. The chair, undamaged, slides a few feet away and comes to a halt almost apologetically.

"Doctor Scott!" Brad yells, but Riff knows there's no point. That laser is set to handle something like Frank, a Transylvanian agent in peak condition. An old human? Barely a challenge.

He hardly gives the gently steaming corpse of Dr Scott a second look. Riff's brain is fizzing with his Idea, so much that he feels he may burst with it. But it isn't quite right. It's not quite finished. It needs –

"We'll have to tell his family," says Janet, who is crying herself now, her tears hidden by the rain. But Brad is shaking his head. Good, solid Brad. Even though his beloved mentor has just bitten the big one in the most horrible way imaginable, Brad hasn't budged. He hasn't run to the body. He's stayed where he needs to be, shielding Frank, shielding the person who he still has any hope of saving.

"He doesn't have any family left," Brad says. "Except Eddie. His only nephew. His sister died."

And the Idea clicks into place with a triumphant chord inside Riff's head. He actually gasps, then staggers, because Magenta has struck him across the cheek. He probably deserves it.

"Vhat did you do zhat for?" she demands. "You vant me to shoot you too? Because…because I vould."

He suspects she's almost crying too, at the very thought. He loves her so much. But the Idea is so big now it's almost consuming him. It's leaving its larval stage behind, sprouting wings, becoming no longer a mere Idea, but a fully-fledged Plan.

"Eddie!" is all he can manage to say, and Magenta scrunches up her nose as if contemplating just how crazy he might be. "I knew there was something familiar about him…"

"Riff, my darlink," says Magenta, still not lowering her laser, but curling her other hand under his chin in a gesture of loving concern. "I think you're delirious. It vill be ze shock. Zo. Ve get Furter all stowed away, get rid of these humans, ve vill have a drink. You'll feel better."

"I've never felt better in my life," says Riff, and to his own surprise, he means it.

Because it's all going to be all right, you see. It really is. What were you ever worrying about?

Brad and Columbia shrink backwards in unison as Riff turns his huge, beaming, terrifying smile upon them. Frank never moves, Janet clutched to him like a lifeline.

"Hello," Riff purrs ingratiatingly, the rain dripping from his lank hair and shining from his teeth. "You can put her down now, Frank. Master. We don't need anyone else to die. Not anymore."

Frank shakes his head, sets his teeth. Janet can feel his body is clenching, preparing for a fight.

"Oh, I can see you're suspicious," Riff says. "I don't blame you. But I swear on the Great Old Queen that you're in no danger. And nor are your…your humans."

Frank's eyes widen at the invocation of the Sacred Name, and every muscle relaxes. He places Janet gently on her feet, holding her in front of him, his hands still on her shoulders. Magenta groans aloud and her gun hand drops to her side in defeat.

"You're a fool," she says. "And you've doomed us both."

"I'm a genius," says Riff, light-headed with relief. "And we're going home."

Her swift gasp of surprise is like music to his ears. Because it means she still believes in him. And that means that everything is going to be _doubly_ all right.


	15. Chapter 15

"This is never going to work," says Brad, and Riff Raff, shoving things out of Frank's largest wardrobe and into a bag, makes a disparaging noise.

Of course it's going to work. For one thing, humans are dumb as sticks. They'll believe anything you tell them as long as it doesn't inconvenience them to do so. And who could this possibly inconvenience?

Well, possibly Brad and Janet, but as far as Riff's concerned, they've more than asked for it. In fact, they've stood in front of it, protected it and demanded it. He has no sympathy at all.

Amusement, possibly. But no sympathy.

"Nobody's ever going to believe that Frank is Doctor Scott! He's too young! He's too…mobile!"

Oh, how priceless. Riff's going to remember that one. 'Mobile.' It's a pretty good description of Frank, actually.

"You have a lot to learn about what Frank is capable of," is all he says, before fixing Brad with a stern look. He may not be sympathetic, but he's still desperately proud of his charge, and he needs to be certain he's not going to come back here in a few years and find Frank up for adoption in a rescue centre somewhere. Earth has those, right? "Are you still sure you want to take him on?"

Brad's expression locks into almost laughably patriotic stolidity. "Of course," he says. "He's coming with us. We want him."

"Yes," agrees Riff, because this was the whole key to his Idea in the first place. "You do. And he wants you."

Brad still seems to want to argue.

"You can't just stick a grey wig and a moustache on a young man, sit him in a wheelchair and expect people to believe he's an old man! That's not how it works!"

"Actually," says Riff, utterly deadpan as he squashes three of Frank's best corsets into a side pocket of the bag, "that's exactly how it works."

Janet feels as if she's floating in a little bubble of unreality. She's sitting on the chaise, with Frank curled half in her lap, petting his hair while Columbia tends to his wounds. They're still all wet and cold from being outside, and Janet's still got the sense that she should be jumping at every shadow in case it contains a killer robot or a laser-wielding alien. But the presence of Frank, lying calm and even relatively patient across her, reassures her. He's her alien-danger-canary. If there were anything badly wrong, he'd know it, and react fast. Instead, he yawns widely with a flash of tongue and teeth, before declaring "I'm tired," in a very normal-Frank sort of superior whine, and snuggling into her thigh.

"We're all tired," Janet agrees. It has been an excessively long forty-eight hours, and it feels like it's getting longer by the second. But at least now they're indoors, and nobody is actively trying to kill them. It's a novel feeling, one which is going to take some getting used to. Everything seems to have calmed down so quickly.

Once Frank had set Jane down gently in the mud, he'd approached his former butler and maid with the same insolent flouncing swagger he'd used when she'd first seen him. As if he'd heard something that made him feel completely safe. Who the heck was the Great Old Queen anyway?

Riff had started talking immediately, the words almost falling over each other in his haste to get them out. Magenta had stayed ominously silent, her arms folded across her chest in an accusatory fashion. Frank interjected at a few points: his voice had changed during the discussion, Janet noticed, taking on the same weird Eastern-European twang that Magenta had, and he still sounded as scared as all get out, despite the bravado in his walk. But even Magenta started to smile after Riff had talked rapidly for a few minutes (gosh, isn't that woman's smile scary?), and generally when people with high-powered laser weapons start looking happy, you're either safe or dead.

So the way it happens (says Riff) is this.

Here, we have a gone-rogue deactivated agent – that's you, master - who isn't properly deactivated, that we can't take home alive. We also can't go home ourselves, because if we take a dead agent home in the state he's in – sorry about that, Furter, truly - we will go to prison. Or worse. Because the rules have always been very clear. We are handlers. We handle. We correct and control, where necessary. And we always decommission before disaster. And while we may be tough, we should never be cruel.

Still sorry about that, by the way.

So, _we're_ not going home. And Frank, he doesn't want to go home. Do you? No. Didn't think so. Yes, I know. You _are_ home.

Except (Riff continues, and here's where his eyes gleam madly with the delight in his Plan) that we've had it wrong. Haven't we, master? Oh, we are good handlers. Good trainers. Nobody has ever had an agent as tough and as brilliant as you. But it wasn't all to do with us, talented though we are.

It was because you _wanted_ , wasn't it?

It's always been about want, far more than it has ever been about work. This is our job. But being here, being with the humans - it's your _passion_. And some deep part of you knew that you'd eventually have to leave. Or be killed. I knew you knew. Sometimes I'd see it in your eyes. And you didn't want to leave, either in a flight chair or a body bag. So you broke your programming. I can't imagine how hard that must have been for you. And I had to watch you with Ozkar B Zek, so I _know_ hard, master.

There are no words for the success you could be as an agent if you truly _wanted_ what you were doing, rather than having to be trained for years. For a while, you wanted to be trained, so you were, and you were the best. Then you wanted something else.

Yes, believe it or not, I'm getting to the point, Magenta, my love.

This Doctor Scott that you brought here. I have to believe it was pure luck that brought his nephew Eddie to our doors. But once a bit of pillow talk with Eddie revealed what his uncle did for a living, you knew what you had to do. It was your chance. When I read your notes -

What? Yes, I always read your notes, it's part of my required report. No, I haven't read your diary.

You have a _diary_?

…anyway.

Doctor Scott was in the employ of the US government. He investigated what the humans call UFOs, and I'm sure now you meant to set him on Magenta and I, while setting up some kind of deal with him for political asylum, probably in exchange for scientific knowledge - or our dissected corpses. No, no, don't look like that, I wouldn't blame you. I'm not going to hit you. In your situation, it's probably what I would have done. You knew he couldn't resist a bait like you. An alien, a real live alien. So you primed Eddie with tasty little hints and evidences, made sure that Dr Scott got interested in you. Became fascinated, because after all, master, fascination is one of your greater talents. Until you knew he had to come, was going to come. If I hadn't mistaken your planning for a sign that you were about to implode and deactivated you, you'd probably have persuaded him to help you – persuasion being your greatest talent of all.

And you covered your real interest in him with extreme scientific jealousy, which I thought was odd at the time, but then you've always been odd, haven't you? I assumed this Dr Scott was some kind of Adonis. Or had better hair than you. Or something. I suppose it was also Eddie who told you about his uncle's favourite students, Brad and Janet. So then nothing would soothe you but that we all had to go out and play at human religion at that church, where I remember we lost you for about ten minutes. We thought you'd taken one of the bridal party off for some fun. Humans are so fond of naughty vicars, after all. But I rather think you were putting slow punctures in car tyres, weren't you?

Oh. You did both. I can't say I'm surprised.

Was it the Brad human? You seem to have been in collusion with him, after all. And so Brad and Janet get here. Insurance. An extra bargaining chip, should Dr Scott prove hard to convince, and extra cover for the truth, to keep it from me, to throw me off should I stumble onto what you were doing. Bait for Dr Scott, indeed – they were bait for me. And I took it. Took them in.

And when they arrived you loved them, just as you love all humans, in your way.

I think for you it's always been about love, hasn't it? Love is what you've wanted. Of all kinds, I suspect, knowing you, master.

And now (Riff concludes) what we're going to do is all about love for me, too. I…I have _loved_ being your handler, Furter.

Master.

 _Frank._

I have loved being the best, Frank. But I love Magenta, and she and I need to go home. You need to stay here. And Dr Scott is dead. And all of these facts will be completely compatible, with a few…conditions.

The meaningful look that passes between Frank and Riff at this point is lost on Brad. But it's evidently the look of two smart folks with a single shared thought, and the last hints of tension around Frank's eyes and mouth fade away, until once again he's got that teenage-soldier feel about him. Younger. More vulnerable.

Frank glances from Riff to Magenta to Brad and Janet, and then he tilts his head back, looks up into the sky. The rain hammers his face, his eyes, but he doesn't care. His crimson lips are wreathed in an ecstatic smile, eyes closing. He flings up his arms in a gesture of joy, before bringing them down to encircle his own shoulders, as if trying to grab hold of all this horrible godawful earthling weather and then hug it to his bosom. He's quite lost in the glory of it all, and quite possibly starting to get dangerously spacey from all the pot and blood loss.

It's Janet who comes to him, touches his shoulder, brings him back to himself long enough to hear Riff starting to explain the bones of the plan to Brad.


	16. Chapter 16

Riff has to use simple words, of course. Talking to humans. What do you expect? What he opens with is: "You're going to take him home with you. Keep him safe. He's a brilliant scientist. He'll be your new Doctor Scott. It's only fair. My sister killed the old one. We'll call it a swap."

And all Brad can say, horrified, is " _What?!"_

Riff repeats himself (obviously these humans have incredibly poor senses) and upon getting the same response from a shellshocked Brad, sighs inwardly, wishes Magenta had shot them after all, and elaborates.

"You have…agents on this planet? Yes?" He frowns slightly, looking for the word. "Infiltrators? Assassins?"

"Spies," Brad offers.

"Yes. Yes, that will do. Spies. And your spies, sometimes they manage to place themselves at the very heart of the enemy's camp, without the enemy knowing. They are very clever, very good at persuasion and at playing a part. So the enemy believes. The enemy trusts. He takes the spies to his home and becomes their best friend." Riff gestures to where Janet is holding Frank's hand. "Never before on Transylvania have we had an agent so accomplished that he can become…naturalized. You may have noticed," says Riff, without a trace of irony. "that our ways may seem peculiar to your eyes."

Brad, sensibly, says nothing.

"But Frank is the best we have ever had. It is just possible, if I can be as good at persuasion as he is, that our superiors will believe it of him."

"You're going to tell them that he's…" and Brad's voice drops to a whisper, in the manner of a contemporary American discussing the purported presence of Communists, "…gone undercover? _Frank_?!"

To be fair to Brad, it's not really surprising that the idea of Frank being an undercover anything (except possibly stripper/go-go dancer) is a little confusing.

"Of course," says Riff, who has now been percolating his Plan for long enough to get smug about it. "It is perfect. He will become Earth's leading expert on UFOs. There is no better or safer place for an alien in America, and my people will be delighted with the potential he has as an infiltration agent in that position."

They might even promote me, he doesn't say. That part still seems too fantastical to be real. An hour ago he was a dead man. Now he might get a parade in his honour, if they can all pull this off. An undercover operative. It's never happened, but the very unlikelihood alone has made the idea pass almost into myth. Everyone wants to believe it's possible. And, as Riff well knows, there's nothing like the desire to believe for making proof out of what is in fact mere supposition.

Something still seems to be bothering Brad, who is frowning, the blue robe plastered darkly to his skin with the wet.

"Will he be spying for real?" he asks. "Sending information about us back to your planet?"

He doesn't look happy when Riff nods.

"The price we both pay for Frank's life – " _and my own_ – "is information. He'll be quite safe. As long as he's useful, and operating normally, they won't dare disturb him for fear of compromising him."

Brad looks even unhappier.

"But what do you even want here? With us?" he pursues. "I mean, are you planning to invade or something?"

When Riff says nothing, just stares at him with those shadowed eyes, Brad becomes indignant. "All I'm asking is for a little surety, god-damnit, a reasonable request –"

"Brad," Janet says, because Frank is reacting poorly to the conflict between his new handlers and the old ones. He's starting to shake again. "Don't be ungrateful."

Brad subsides, caught between Janet's big, worried eyes and Frank's bowed, shivering shoulders.

"Can you at least tell me," he pleads with Riff. "Are more of you going to come? Are you going to come _back_?"

And Riff bares his teeth in a wholly delighted grin, just as the lightning flashes cheerfully again in emphasis. It's a good thing we have such well-functioning pathetic fallacy on our planet, isn't it?

"Oh yes," Riff says. "We most certainly intend to come back."

Once the rain has given over for a bit (didn't we say how wonderful pathetic fallacy is around here?) they end up loading Frank into Dr Scott's wheelchair to get him to the car. He's very evidently very tired now, and doesn't protest in the least. Now that the danger is past and he has achieved the rescue he so badly wanted, Frank's body seems to have relapsed into that fluid bonelessness that comes in so handy when dancing or fucking. Columbia tucks his bandaged wrist under the blanket. Brad takes over the handles. Janet has cajoled Frank into a button-down shirt to cover the soaking corset and the remains of the blood so that if by some chance they get pulled over by the police, they won't have as much explaining to do. He's also wearing a pair of striped flannel pyjama trousers, contributed by Columbia, for decency's sake. Brad hopes that the soaking they've all had will negate any lingering smell of pot. He and Janet have been given their clothes back – thank heavens – so at least some tiny piece of normality has been restored.

Columbia only has a single, very small bag, and, to everyone's surprise, a teddy-bear. The teddy is very shabby and very well-cuddled and bears (ha ha) a passing resemblance to a biker. She clutches it to her as if it's the only thing she has left, and maybe it is. She won't go near Magenta. She stands very still, almost primly, in her sequin shorts and Brad's borrowed jacket, and doesn't speak to anyone.

The car, as it turns out, is a very serviceable Ford. Riff Raff goes to fetch it from the garage. Janet, peeking in, notes that there's also a massively battered pickup truck parked in there. Mud all over it. Dents and scrapes up the sides, as if it's been rolled more than once. Riff, getting out of the Ford, notices her looking and says: "The master's not a natural driver," and they leave it at that.

Janet and Frank get into the back. Or more accurately, Janet gets, and Frank is put. She puts a hand on his leg, feeling guilty but daring now she's back in her good-girl clothes, and he leans into her, seeking reassurance. He looks worried again, now they're actually leaving, now that it's all over.

"It's all right," she says. "We're going home."

He blinks at her, the worried look not going away.

"I'm going home?"

The amnesia is going to be a problem. Frank's short-term memory is shot full of holes. The long-term and working memory seems better, which is probably the only thing that allowed him to carry out his plan. No wonder it took him a long time.

"Yes," Janet affirms. "You're going home. Our home. With us."

Columbia gets into the passenger seat, where she sits ramrod straight, her bag and her teddy on her knees, like a prissy grandma. Janet, who seems to be heading straight for the denmother role in all this, reaches out her other hand and briefly touches the girl's shoulder. Columbia gives her a faint smile.

"I feel like I should be dead," she says. "Like I died and this is what comes after."

"It's the shock," says Janet, sensibly, but Brad, who is politely closing the passenger door, isn't sure at all. He has a memory of his vision from earlier, where everyone was gone, and the world was full of smoke and death - and somehow it seems more real than this. He shakes it off, turns to Riff and Magenta, who are stood together, gleaming in their golden uniforms and the watery grey light. He claps his hands together, in nervous finality, and raises a smile.

"Well. That's us, then."

And because he's Brad and he was raised right, he holds out his hand for Riff to shake. Riff Raff looks confused, very briefly, then he reaches out and takes the offered hand. The alien's skin is cool, dry, his grip loose. Somewhere under all of the Planning, Riff is still insecure.

After all, they still have to make their report. It'll be the most important call Riff's ever made, and after all this, it could still backfire. He doesn't tell Brad this. You don't alert the deer you may have to hunt later by firing the gun now.

It will be all right, Riff tells himself, relentlessly, it will be all right. It has to be.

Something about Brad's strained expression tells him that he's been holding the human's hand for too long, so he lets go. But Brad doesn't leave. He's still wearing that vaguely constipated look that says he's got more to say. Riff waits, patiently, half expecting that Brad will choose now to back out. That they'll give Frank back to him. He'd be lying if he said the idea didn't hold just a little appeal. He's going to miss Frank. Miss having an agent to handle.

But all Brad says is "I lied."

Riff frowns.

"You know, I've done a lot of things," Brad continues, as if now the floodgates are opened he's gone into full confession mode. And he chuckles, ruefully. "Or at least, God knows, I've tried. But I was never a liar until Frank looked at me."

Riff's face clearly says that he hasn't the faintest bloody idea what Brad is on about.

"He suggested I was helping him. That I was in on it."

Brad pauses. Shakes his head, adjusts his glasses.

"I wasn't. And since then it's been feeling like…like I'm hurt deep down inside. Like I'm bleeding." He meets Riff's eyes again, and for the first time Riff feels like he understands humans. "Is this what it's going to be like? From now on? When I'm telling everyone that Frank is Doctor Scott, that I don't know what happened to Eddie, when – when I'm lying?"

It's actually Magenta who reaches out, now, pats Brad on the back of the arm as she would a child who has fallen for the first time and discovered that the world is a hard place, with rough edges designed to hurt.

"It gets easier," she says. "And you have Frank. You have Janet. I think you love zhem. It may not be zhe kind of love you're used to. It is not a neat, tidy love. It vill not always be kind to you. But it vill make everything simple. It vill make everything all right. Love."

And she locks eyes with Riff, and smiles radiantly, almost shyly, and Riff finally starts to believe what his head is telling him.

Yes. It will be all right. It has to be.

Oh. Oh, yes, that reminds him.

Riff digs into his pocket and pulls out a piece of paper, covered in his own spidery, scrawling longhand. The ink is barely dry.

"You'll need this," he says, folding it in two to hand over. Brad takes it, not looking at it. "It's important," Riff cautions. "Don't lose it. You may have to use it."

Brad doesn't unfold it fully. But he examines it with more caution, as he would a spider he's just been told is venomous. It is (a glance at the top tells him) a Guide to the Care of Agent Furter. The handwriting is terrible. Brad sincerely hopes that he's not reading some of the words correctly, because if he is, they've bitten off far more than they can chew by taking Frank home with them. He stops reading when his eyes scan over the words "threesome" "jelly" and "heroin", deciding he'll attempt it again when he's feeling stronger.

"Brad Majors," calls Riff, as Brad turns to the car. "I told you once the master is delicate. Try to remember that. Especially when he's being intolerable."

Then Magenta's voice, deep and full of a kind of joy: "Don't look back, Mr Majors. You've already chosen."

Brad is almost away, his hand on the car door, when Riff Raff calls out to him once again, this time with clear suppressed amusement in his voice.

"Brad Majors?"

Brad turns, almost positive that whatever it is, he doesn't want to hear it.

"Don't worry. It was almost certainly bacon I gave you."

And Magenta hoots with laughter, Riff joining in after a second with his own braying cackle. It's as if all the solemnity of this official leave-taking has been too much for them.

Brad gets into the car without even a glance, takes the wheel, floors the pedal. The car roars off into the damp late afternoon. Nobody sings, or turns the radio on. Nobody asks "are we there yet". Nobody says anything.

And when Brad goes back to the castle, perhaps three days later, alone, there is no castle to find. It is quite gone. The road ends in the encircling fences and inside there is only cheerfully growing grass and trees, not even the imprint of where a building – a _ship_ – might have stood.

Nothing to indicate that any of it happened at all.

Well. Except that one, corseted, battered, _difficult_ Frank-shaped thing.

* * *

 _ **Author's note: Hello constant readers. Shall I tell you a secret?**_

 _ **This is where the story is meant to end. It's where I'd planned it to end, inasmuch as I'd planned it at all, which wasn't a lot.**_

 _ **However. There's still bits and pieces and snapshots cluttering up my computer, because I just couldn't seem to let this one lie, and the characters kept right on talking. So technically, there's more.**_

 _ **What do YOU think?**_

 _ **Is it worth an epilogue? (Plus, if it helps at all, one of the bits is a full transcript of Riff's Guide which he hands to Brad :P )**_


	17. Chapter 17

_**As requested (you are amazing readers) I present to you the**_

* * *

 **EPILOGUE**

Frank had fallen asleep in the car very shortly after leaving the grounds, and remained unconscious for almost the whole way back. This was different to the unconsciousness of resetting that they'd seen before: he was restless, twitchy and occasionally moaned in his sleep. Janet had kept his head cradled in her lap and tried not to panic every time he shifted. As has been noted before, Janet is a hugely practical girl at heart, and the practical enormity of what they've done is just starting to hit her. What if Frank's so badly hurt he needs a hospital? They can't risk taking him, exposing his alien-ness to the world. What if he ever gets sick? Can they give him things like aspirin, or will that poison him?

Oh my gosh. What if he gets someone pregnant? Can he do that? Are their species…you know…compatible? She's going to have to teach him about the modern human rules of engagement, and she's blushing at the very thought.

And he's got no papers. No ID. She hopes against hope that Dr Scott was the sort of anally-retentive professor whose important papers will be kept in a file folder on the bookshelf, labelled "My ID and other important papers – use in case you ever have to pass off an alien axe murderer as me".

More to the point, how the heck are they going to get _in_ to Dr Scott's house? His keys are probably still in his coat. On his corpse.

Too many questions. No answers. Try to live in the moment, Janet.

They'd dropped Columbia off in a tiny hick town that may as well have been called Nowheresville, OH, at the doorway of a mom-and-pop store where a late-night light still glowed. The girl had asked for nothing, but Brad (being Brad) had let her keep his jacket and had peeled off the last pair of twenties from his wallet, just so she could get started.

He had also given her his calling card. Just because. And then, with a tiny smile, she'd vanished into the dark.

They go to Brad's parents' house first because fortunately that worthy couple are out of town on a cruise, arriving there just as dawn hits the sky. Janet has never even stayed overnight there herself. It feels the most peculiar thing, Brad unlocking the door, walking into the familiar Pine-Sol scented homeliness of the hall, seeing the familiar furnishings and fittings.

And then, as Janet stands there marveling at the now unfamiliar normality, one of the many bags Riff had chucked into the trunk in her hand, Brad carefully walks Frank into the house, one arm supporting the man. Frank is dragging at his side, only half-awake. He looks utterly out of place in his now-bloodstained overshirt and pyjama trousers, his makeup running, the high heels that Janet hadn't had the heart to tell him to remove clattering on the hardwood flooring.

"Shower," says Brad, and Janet nods. "If you can get the bags?"

Getting Frank clean takes a little longer than Brad had anticipated. Thank goodness his mom has one of those installed shower seats because of her hip problem. Brad drops Frank fully-clothed onto it, turns the water on hot so the room fills with steam, and is about to leave when Frank's hand shoots out and grabs him.

"Don't go," he pleads.

And (making a mental note never, ever to even _think_ about this again when his parents are home) Brad starts to unbutton Frank's shirt and reaches for the lacings of the corset with hands that tremble only a little. Whereas Frank is trembling all over despite the hot water, and arching desperately to his touch.

The shower seat, as it turns out, is indeed very useful.

Things get easier once Frank is washed, dried, and installed on the couch in front of the silent TV with a blanket wrapped around him. Stripped of his clothes and makeup, and bundled in a pair of Brad's father's pyjamas, he looks very human and it's easier to pretend that everything is normal. That he's just a friend stopping by for a while (just out of hospital, car crash, look at the wounds, oh my, terrible trauma, poor dear) who needs a bit of help to get back on his feet.

Frank stares around blankly at everything in the room, as if giving the most cursory of risk assessments. Secure in the fact that he's safe and unlikely to do anyone (including himself) any harm, Brad and Janet finally take the time to read the Guide that Riff has given them.

Then they read it again.

After the third reading (just to be sure), Janet says, haltingly:

"My goodness. Do you think that we –"

"Yes," Brad says. "Yes."

Because really, there's nothing more to be said.

Let this be a lesson to everyone who thinks it's okay to just tick the box saying they have read and understood the terms and conditions, when they blatantly haven't. _Always_ read the fine print. Otherwise, you never know when you may have accidentally signed away your immortal soul or agreed to become the sole carer for an incredibly powerful, incredibly psychologically damaged alien transvestite. And you wouldn't want that, now would you?

Well, unless your name is Brad or Janet.

They both give a sidelong glance at the huddled figure on the couch. Frank has fallen asleep again. He wakes up just before six, with an earsplitting screech of pure terror, and Brad has to practically sit on him until Janet returns from the bathroom and uses her happy handling powers to calm him down. All becomes well again. They curl up together in a tangle on the couch.

Later, when the sun outside is fully bright and blooming, Janet calls a psychiatrist (it never hurts to be prepared), and Brad finally calls in sick to work. And luckily, when he wakes up the next time, Frank is better. He is, in fact, full of beans, and rocketing around the house like a captive whirlwind, endlessly curious. They realize in fairly short order that if they are to get anything done, they'll have to physically leave, as while they're indoors Frank is all over them like an overly forward and oversexed tomcat. And he is indeed very persuasive and extremely unavoidable and incredibly sweet in a whole lot of specialized ways.

Two days on, and Brad finds himself out on the porch at three in the morning in his socks and vest, holding a baseball bat, because the noises were simply horrific – and what is it? Why, it's Frank, and he's caught a burglar, of course! It seems that that delightful protective streak now includes any house Janet is staying in.

It takes Brad a few minutes to get Frank called off, calmed down, and then check that what they have is in fact still a burglar and not a corpse. They're in luck. And given that yesterday Janet went out and bought almost a whole drugstore's worth of cosmetics, nobody is likely to believe the criminal should he ever attempt to give a description of his attacker. Why yes, officer, I was having a lovely innocent stroll in my neighbour's garden at two in the morning, when I was set upon by an inhumanly strong madman in bright green eyeshadow and purple lipstick. No, I haven't been drinking.

They also learn that it's pointless attempting to lock Frank in anywhere, as he either panics or breaks out. Or both in quick succession.

It's later on that day that Brad takes the car, under the pretext of dropping the unconscious burglar somewhere far away where nobody will link him back to them, and drives back the many, many miles to where the castle had been (and now isn't). He stands in the pretty woodland grove, where the road inexplicably ends in nothing, listening to the birdies chirp and feeling the sun beat down, and wonders what kind of nightmare he has woken up from.

And spares a moment of thought for Riff and Magenta. Despite everything, he hopes that they got home alright. That they're happy. Because when it comes down to it, Brad wants everyone to be happy, and after all, they did give him Frank.

Frank, who now nuzzles up to both him and Janet at every available opportunity. Frank, who is ridiculously attached to both of them and won't sleep alone. Frank, who looks happy most of the time now (except for that odd ten percent which involves screaming, and his eruptions of murderous temper).

Frank, whom Brad is pretty sure now that he loves just as much as he loves Janet.

It's almost a month on, and things are just starting to settle, at least a little bit. Brad's parents had come home to a spotless house, with a perhaps overly cheerful son in it, pumping their hands, kissing their cheeks, and explaining that wasn't it wonderful? He and Janet were going to be married. And their favourite tutor, Dr Everett Scott had offered them a place to live. His house was far too big for one lonely old man. There were lots of rooms, oh, lots. And he could do with the company (and the help around the house, Brad had whispered, with an entirely unsubtle glance to the wheelchair)

Dr Scott himself, bundled up under his blanket (he looked thinner than before, Brad's mom had thought, but there was otherwise a sense of spry health and vitality about the old man that did her heart good to see), had agreed wholeheartedly and brushed off any suggestions of payments, rent or otherwise. His voice was reassuringly the same as it always had been as he clasped her hands. It was his pleasure. Such a nice young couple, and him all alone in the world, and so busy with his most important government work. It would be a blessing to have them help look after the house. Such a good boy you have, Mrs Majors. So kind. So generous. He'd patted her arm and beamed. Good teeth for an old boy, too.

Dr Scott really was very charming, Mrs Majors thought, after they had left, and then wondered where on earth that thought had come from.

Brad and Janet find living in Dr Scott's well-appointed home very comfortable, once they get over the guilt and Janet has packed most of their old friend's personal items away. Getting in had proved no problem after all. Frank had done something very fast but highly illegal to the lock, which like everything else had lain down submissively and given itself over to Frank's skill.

Frank himself is…well, he's Frank. Mostly. There are dangerous moments where he forgets who he is, where he is, what he's doing: sometimes that means he retreats into horror and can be found hiding somewhere in the house, usually the bedroom. And sometimes it means that he becomes a focused, electrically-charismatic sex machine.

And he works. Almost constantly.

Dr Scott's study provides him with endless distraction. There are so many notes. Files. Theories. Janet finds him one day, helpless with laughter, surrounded by an unpublished treatise of Scott's that seems to be detailing how it would be possible for aliens to exist on Mars. Another day, Brad (sensing danger because Frank hasn't been heard from in almost six hours) walks softly into the study and finds that their alien charge has almost completed a twenty thousand word essay on the benefits of using solar power to assist in providing the energy for trans-warp travel.

But life goes on and Frank does not expose himself (in any way other than the usual) and nobody notices the change in Dr Scott at all. The psychiatrist that Janet hires to make house calls is quite shocked by the litany of horrors his patient describes, and the very clear extent of the mental damage those horrors have caused. At the end of one particularly harrowing session, the man emerges in a barely-controlled fury. Brad, concerned, flags him down for a chat.

"Goddamnit, Mr Majors," the shrink explodes, "what those Nazis were like…what they put him through…it goes beyond anything I'd ever imagined. And my daddy was in the war." He places a hand on Brad's arm. "You're a good friend, doing great things," he says, almost choking with emotion. "Dr Scott is going to be fine. I'll waive my fee."

Like Riff before him, Brad is certain that Frank will never be fine. Never, ever again. But he takes the sentiment as it's meant. And has to hurry the psychiatrist out, because Frank had seen the hand on the arm, and Frank doesn't like people touching his stuff.

At Brad and Janet's wedding, Dr Scott is the best man, something which surprises nobody except Ralph Hapschatt. He makes an inspiring speech, delivered with passion and aplomb. Not a dry eye in the house. Everybody is terribly, terribly happy, although Janet is somewhat bemused by her father's attitude, which by the end of the evening seems to be that Janet would have made a better choice by giving her hand to a respectable older man, who has a high-flying career. And a moustache. And perhaps a wheelchair.

It's on a Thursday morning almost a year to the day later that the envelope arrives, when Brad has gone to work and Janet is curled up on the couch with Frank sprawled across her, occasionally pushing his head into the curve of her neck and making happy sounds. Frank leaps up to fetch it. He may not be allowed to answer the door if he's not in his Dr Scott get-up, but he can fetch the mail. He likes fetching the mail. Quite often it has presents for him in it, things ordered from specialist shops under a pseudonym.

He returns looking confused, and Janet, who has learnt a lot over the past twelve months, immediately takes him by the arm, draws him down next to her, and runs her fingers over his bare skin, stroking him, calming him.

"What is it?" she asks. And he hands it to her.

The envelope is thick, expensive, and feels oddly familiar under her hands. There's a moment of confusion on Janet's part, too, until she realizes with a sick jolt that she knows where she's felt paper like this before.

It's the same stuff that Riff handed to Brad all that time ago, with the instructions on. Now that she comes to think of it, the writing on the front is the same too.

It's addressed to Dr Everett Scott, at this address.

Janet is teetering on the edge of telling Frank to throw it away, but she catches the look on his face. He knows. He remembers. Anything that can permeate the general fog that is Frank's memory deserves his attention. Anything else would be terribly unfair to him. "Well, go on," she says, smiling and trying to look as if it doesn't matter in the least. "Open it."

He does. He slides out a single piece of card, on which is written in Riff's spikey scrawl only one line.

 _Enter at your own risk._

They're back.

Frank shudders, and Janet feels a thrill run down her own spine. A small knot of tension she hadn't even really realized was there uncurls quietly within her body. Riff and Magenta came out of this all right after all. It had been there at the back of her mind that something bad could have happened, that they would go home only to be killed, or that they would be immediately sent back to finish the execution of their rogue agent. But it's been so long now. And there's something so purely _jubilant_ about the flourish of Riff's handwriting that she just knows that everything has turned out fine for him in the end.

However, it's not certain that Frank has picked up on this. She immediately curls closer to him, relying on the body-to-body contact to keep him stable as it has so often in the past. But her actions, though welcome, is unnecessary: his body is tense with an altogether different kind of excitement, and when he tilts up to look at her, he is beaming and hopeful.

"Oh, say we can?" he says, eagerly. "We shall. We _must_."

* * *

 _ **And yes. This is where the story finally ends. I'm so very sad to have finished it in some ways. I've had an amazing time writing it and you, the readers, have made me so happy because you have engaged so enthusiastically with something that was after all only a ludicrous plot bunny that I followed down the rabbithole.**_

 _ **Thank you. Thank you so very, very much. From the bottom of my heart.**_

 _ **Oh, one more thing. In a couple of days I'll post Riff's Guide To The Care Of Agent Furter, because it made me laugh to write it, and I hope it'll make you laugh too.**_

 _ **Love,**_

 _ **M.**_


	18. Riff Raff's Guide

_**So this is it. The very last piece of the picture. Thank you again for being so kind and seeing this story through to the end.**_

* * *

 **GUIDE TO THE CARE OF AGENT FURTER**

Never let him out of your sight.

When he escapes and gets out of your sight, get him back immediately.

Never engage him in direct hand-to-hand combat. You will die and probably lose. Always bring weapons or drugs. I advise against morphine unless you're planning an orgy. In which case, 50mg ought to do it.

Never give him heroin. You don't need to know why. It's classified. Just don't.

If he is crying, fuck him to calm him down.

If he is angry, fuck him to calm him down.

If he runs out of Super Crème Concealer, fuck him to calm him down. Then go to the drugstore. Only ever buy their luxury version. I bought the cheaper one once. My fingernail hasn't grown back yet.

Basically, you can't beat sex to handle him if he's being difficult. Unless you have jelly. Then always use jelly. And sex.

He forgets to eat sometimes. This is a bad thing because if his nutrition levels get too low he will implement survival protocols automatically and in that situation the only one you can guarantee will survive is him. You can either order pizza (always answer the door yourself) or remove all your clothes and apply food to your skin.

Do not get drawn into any arguments about the Virial Theorem. You will die and probably lose. Also, he is wrong.

It is best not to provide him with any experiment ingredients (or recipe items) which include genetic material from your own species. You will be trying to avoid the interest of police.

Immediately give him any of your possessions that he takes a liking to. Don't expect to get them back.

If you do get them back, burn them.

When taking part in a threesome that involves him, you are never the centre of attention.

He doesn't eat eggs. Magenta explained where they came from once.

It is very unlikely given the situation, but if the President of Gurnovia ever manages to track him down again, the details of the restraining order we had to set up are on file at Ohio Central Records Office.

There is never any point in being any of the following things at him. He won't notice and you'll only be annoying yourself.

· Jealous

· Dictatorial

· His parents

· Uninterested

He may not look like much of a man by human standards. I suspect you already know that underestimating his physical ability is idiotic. We tested his strength once, just after we got here, to see what the comparable levels were given local gravity. Let's just say the results were surprising. And expensive to cover up.

Never make the mistake of believing that he is wholly stupid, shallow or stable. He can appear to be all of those things. He is a very good actor.

Don't let him get bored. There is a folder in the green bag with contact details for all the various activities we have arranged for him in the past. If you choose to set up an ambassadorial function, it will be "black tie". This doesn't mean what it sounds like, but there's a black tie in the crimson bag. It goes very well with the diamond negligee.

Hide axes.

Yellow is not his colour. Sometimes he thinks it is. He is wrong. When he remembers or sees that he is wrong, he will be very angry. See previous remarks about dealing with anger. It's easiest to not let him wear anything yellow. Or eat mustard, which generally ends up being the same thing.

The thing in the small bag which beeps is a sub-space communicator. He will use this to send his reports. You don't need to know how it works. Don't even touch it. He knows what to do.

If you need urgent help or have any questions about handling him - tough. You're on your own. Whatever situation you're in with him, if you come out alive, you got it right. If you come out dead, it probably doesn't matter anymore.

Most important to remember: your human rules do not apply. We have seen what you humans are like. You judge books by their covers and make so many assumptions we are amazed you have managed to survive this long. Frank is not human, even when you want him to be. Treat him with love, and be careful. He will adore you or he will rip you apart, but he is yours, and he will be susceptible to you.

If all else fails with him, employ few morals, and some persuasion.


End file.
